We used to be on the streets man, dancing, me and my friends, that’s how it all started.
With a cowbell and all. I would do more of the music, see. The cowbell, when you hit it, to me, it sounded like a tabla. I would take that sounds and distort it. That’s how it started, Afrika Bambata. If you go back even further, in Jamaica, there would just be one turntable and the MC would rap over it.
Growing Up
My father was an electronic engineer. There would always be equipment in the basement. He’d keep it in these tobacco boxes. I would open the stuff and would wonder…we’re from this ‘good’ Sikh family and there was tobacco in the house. I never asked him about the tobacco though.
Years later, I converted the lower room of my basement into my office. It was a very personal space and there were all these people in there that I hired to work for me. And I didn’t have the money to pay all these people, so they would be squatting in my house. I would look forward to going on tour because I didn’t want to stay in my own house.
Losing the ‘plot’
When I was 25 years old, I approached London Records with my then manager. The A&R manager at the company asked me, ‘Do you have a plot?’ And I was like, what do you mean? There were 600 people queuing up outside Anokha in the dead of winter, and we couldn’t them in. Everybody in London knew that this was happening. But he said, ‘Do you have a plot?’
Sustainable Development
You know what my problem is, Kenneth? (eyes dilated, focused gaze and a manic look). I make music every night. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, I don’t get sleep and make music. From 2000 to 03, I’ve only been making music. What I want to do is, for the first time in the history of music, I want artists to have a sustainable income. For instance, if you like Talvin Singh, and if you think he’s a good bloke, you subscribe to his newsletter. You pay an X amount and I mail you a song for every day of the year.
Analog guru
I love analog, man, Analog pushes air. There are some tabla players who don’t hit the instrument very hard, but the sounds still travel further than someone who’s beating it hard. If your chakras are blocked, the sound is blocked. Even without a piece of wire or cable connected to a speaker, you can feel the sound. Do you understand what I’m talking about?
My guru taught me an important lesson many years ago about exposing the tabla.
Extra-curriculars
I am very interested in the Sion, Koliwada area. I’ve heard that a lot of the Sikh diaspora landed there, and Dadar of course. And then there’s the South Indian population there. So
there must have been a lot of cross marriages. I used to visit that part of the city a lot before. When I enquire of people about these details though, they get bugged, so…