British-Indian pop star Jay Sean a.k.a Kamaljit Singh Jhooti has gone mainstream in the US with a #1 on the Billboard 100, a single titled “Down”. Indian audiences would be more familiar with his single “Stolen” with Bipasha and his cameo in Bollywood crapflick “Kya Kool Hai Hum”.
The “Down” single has a Chris Brown‘esque feel to it (cue the Rihanna Chris Brown-Rihanna jokes), a tribute to bubblegum R&B pop music, featuring Lil Wayne and …… communism? [TOI]

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Quick Gun Murugan, a Tamil speaking cowboy dressed in bright clothes and leotard jackets, seems to be attempting a comeback of sorts after capturing the imagination of millions in the 90s. Being in tune with the times, he picked a Bhangra number with popstar Mika and also learned to speak Hindi. While we’re all for QGM appearing in bhangra (and even, rap) videos, his new found knowledge of Hindi is likely to earn him the label of “Sellout” from hardcore fans who drew immense enjoyment from his Tamil-English punchlines. Mind …

Another Bollywood version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, this time courtesy the Ramsay brothers.
This one is so bad, it’s not half as funny as the Chiranjeevi version of Thriller.

Contestant on the Taiwanese (best guess from the comments section) version of American Idol sings a Bollywood song complete with a getup that oddly looks like a bearskin lungi. The contestant went all out with dance movements thrown in. On Indian Idol, he would be criticized for issues with pitch and tune and such. But as a cross cultural effort, comes off as a reasonably good effort. The song is “Tujh mein rab dikhta hai”.

Litterateuse points us to this informative post of hers about plagiarism in the Indian music industry.
***Flashback sequence commences***
It’s the early 90s. In a flat in Bombay a family of 4 is hunched over the singular CRT television set waiting for the new show on the block “Superhit Muqabla”. The internet was half a decade away and flat screens were a better part of a decade and half in the future. The father complains loudly about the “quality of music these days” and how everything seems to be copied from “English …

This has been a week when the culture police has been out in full force in India. But this post is about an incident with a difference. For a change, it was the actual police that got into the act, this time to enforce public indecency laws that are more stringent in India than other place in the world, save for the Islamic nations of the Middle east and the “Gelf”.
The need to enforce “strict moral standards” is very strong in India particularly in Chennai where the nighty wearing maamis …

Anoop Desai, a 21 year old student from UNC, appears to have made it to the next round of American Idol. [Post Chronicle]
Anoop Desai a.k.a Noop Doggimg: via Post Chronicle
Dressed in shorts and flip-flops Anoop told judge Randy he could call him “Noop Dogg”. Simon remarked that he looked like he had just come from a meeting with Bill Gates, not sure if it was the nerd look or the whole Indian-software engineer angle.
His singing performance was not half-bad either.
Anoop, who jokingly told Judge Randy Jackson to call him ‘Anoop …

I have been off the blogging scene for the past few weeks for various personal reasons but this was one opportunity that I would not have missed for anything in this world – a chance to listen and interact with one of my musical idols, A. R. Rahman. Thanks to SAJA, I had a chance not only to listen to him talk, but to actually ask him questions and then participate in a discussion later.
After mulling over different things in my head, I asked him about his experimenting with different …

I don’t think this requires any commentary, except they did an amazing job.

Michael Jackson, the erstwhile king of pop is all set to make a $50million comeback tour which will include a trip to India, courtesy Bal Thackeray. [link]
Michael Jackson is all set for a huge $50 million comeback tour which will include London, Berlin, Tokyo, Sydney and Mumbai. Jackson, 49, is expected to collaborate with the likes of Black Eyed Peas star will.i.am, Bon Jovi and rapper 50 Cent.
“Michael will be back on stage soon. He’s been working hard in the studio mixing tracks and getting his vocals back in shape,” …

My search for desi music on radio led me to invest in XM satellite radio. Previously, I never drove that much and for the short drives between home and work, I had enough music on CDs to get by. But now that I moved and am driving more, it was time to get more venues of entertainment or so I thought. To me there was no difference between XM and Sirius in terms of the kind of programming I prefer but XM has a desi music station, so I decided …

In more American Idol news, Mad magazine’s list of the ‘20 Dumbest People, Events & Things of 2007 features our Papaya. While half the world and all the call centers were against Sanjaya, I agreed with fellow bloggers, that he was a kid and the media was being too harsh towards him. The same goes for Mad.
According to the rediff article, this is what Mad has to say about Sanjaya.
We’re generally jealous of no-talents who make millions of dollars. But not so with the king of no-talents, Simon Cowell. Cowell …

Rejoice Fanjayas for on the horizon is the debut album from the Idol we affectionately refer to as Papaya. Quoting the man himself: “See, it’s going to be an R&B-rooted vocal style, but I want to integrate jazz emotion and rock energy and world beats, world sounds, So it sounds kind of schizophrenic, but I’d marry them in a comfortable way. I’m confident it will sound good.” [link]

Rachna Maurya, the ‘item’ girl of Bollywood has redefined the standards for all her peers. And we would not be Über Desi if we did not have the video for you right?
According to Rachna, the unplanned incident occurred on the set of the music video ‘Desi Soda Whiskey’, as a result of a ‘wardrobe malfunction’. A term that makes every man and some women sit up straight. In an interview Rachna explained that the top she was wearing tore apart leaving her with no option.
Her choices were to cancel the …

Dr. Balamuralikrisha performing. Image from balaji shankar.

Shame on all our readers and shame on us for having missed this piece of news.
For the noobs, Dr. Balamuralikrishna is one of most accomplished Carnatic Music vocalist and composer. He started out as a violinist, moved on to play the Kanjira, Mridangam and the Viola. With approximately 400 compositions under his belt he has a whole slew of Ragas and at least one tala to his credit. Regarded as one of the best, it is amazing news to see him being honored.

Goldspot in concert. Image from tomdz.
Not often do you come across a band featuring Desis that makes it big in the west and it is even rarer for them to go back to their roots. Goldspot the LA based rock band is doing just that by simultaneously releasing its single ‘Friday’ in English and Hindi.
For all the DBD’s, what adds to the excitement is the fact that AR Rahman, the Bollywood hit machine has collaborated with the band on this single and a couple of other songs.
Goldspot – …

Komal Trivedi Photo from Boston Globe (Globe Staff Photo / George Rizer)
Ever so often we come across people in the entertainment industry who take the South Asian diaspora to the next level. With one foot inside the door, they make our cause of being heard and understood easier.
Meet Komal Trivedi, A British DJ, who has made Boston College her home. Sipping Chai and spinning Bhangra, Komal is on WZBC, 90.3 from 7 A.M. to 9 A.M every Thursday. Like everyone else, I have to switch to the “International” …