It's Oscar night in America, and here's the South Asian stuff I spotted during the broadcast...
10:40 pm: A.R. Rahman performs his Oscar-nominated song, "If I Rise" (just learned he's on Twitter, @ARRahman).
9:55 pm: Gautham Krishnamurthi was shown in a photograph for the Science and Technology Awards that were given out at a previous event. Here's the official citation (and you can watch the video):
Funny little side note: The video above was given the file name "http://www.oscars.org/video/popup/sta2010_03_allen_brown_kimes.html" - I guess Krishnamurthy was too long for 'em!
It's Grammy Sunday in America, and here is a music-related post, including some items connected to the biggest music awards in the land and some not.
Two long-time friends of SAJA, Chandrika Tandon and Vijay Iyer, were nominated for Grammys today. They didn't win, but they certainly showed yet another dimension of the South Asian community in the U.S. You can listen to the SAJA webcast here.
Chandrika Tandon (@soulchantmusic), nominated for Best Contemporary World Music Album for "Soul Call"; and Vijay Iyer (@vijayiyer), nominated for the Best Jazz Instrumental Album for "Historicity".
Jay Sean, who hit #1 on the Billboard charts with "Down" two years ago - and whose webcast with SAJA/SAMMA you can listen to at this link - is back. Here's a press release:
Jay Sean and Lil Wayne Recreate Magic
On February 8, 2011, Jay Sean released his latest single “Hit the Lights” featuring Lil Wayne on iTunes. The club banging track rocketed to the top 20 on the first day and within 72 hours, “Hit the Lights” shot up the charts and held the #4 spot. Jay Sean and Lil Wayne have surely recreated the magic of their first single together, in fact, this time around the dynamic duo has outdone the initial success of “Down” by taking their track to the top five immediately following the release.
For interviews with Jay Sean please contact Komposit Entertainment: isha at kompositlive.com (tell her SAJA sent you).
From a note by SAMMA co-founder Raj Shah:
HP, in its new global campaign “Everybody On” with Alicia Keys includes a video from Billboard pop/urban recording artist Jay Sean, on the heels of Jay’s Tuesday release of a new track “Hit the Lights” (#3 on iTunes as of Friday).
It's the first time that HP, the largest computer-maker in the world has included a South Asian artist in its U.S. content/campaigns.
This is a preview on YouTube before it hits the HP Global site:
Nita Chawla, a NY-based singer-songwriter, has just written a song, "Revolution," dedicated to the people of Egypt & Tunisia. It's not yet on NitaChawla.com, but she's shared it with SAJAforum. Thanks, Nita!
Long-time SAJA member Brian Q. Silver, Ethnomusicologist and World Music Curator of the Voice of America wrote in to let us know that he has launched a new VOAWorldMusic page on Facebook. He's looking forward to your feedback: BSilver at voanews.com.
Liveblogging, sorta, the Grammys:
11:20 pm: This ad runs:
10:50 pm: Nicki Minaj, the Trinidadian hip-hop star (who is of South Asian origin) is presenting a category with will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas.
10:10 pm:Norah Jones, who won nine Grammys between 2000 and 2009, is presenting a category (she presented with Ringo Starr last year).
By
now, Jay Sean needs no introduction. After he hit #1 on the U.S.
Billboard charts (something no other solo male South Asian artist has ever done),
he hit the ground running.
The 29-year-old reflected on some of the many awe-inspiring moments in
his life last year at the Universal Music Group building in Midtown
yesterday. Among the many highlights were winning the UK’s Asian Music
Award’s Best Album of the Year for "All or Nothing" in March, working with
the likes of Lil Wayne and Sean Paul, and, of course, his first U.S. song
making it to the top of the charts--the list just goes on.
During
interviews with local South Asian media outlets (including AVS TV and
CurryBear.com) Sean says he just wants to just freeze time and reflect on
how much his life has changed since he was a young student in England
damn near becoming another Desi doctor.
And thus the name of his new album expected to drop in November: "Freeze Time."
“I
had the best year of my life, you know? Hands down, the best year of my
life was last year. Incredible in every aspect. And I just thought,
‘You know, if I could just freeze that moment, freeze that year and just
freeze time, so I could just take everything in, just take it in...’
and that was it: Freeze Time, I just knew I had to put it out there.”
Text and Photos by Shefali Kulkarni, a
24-year-old student at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia
University. She is concentrating in Digital Media -
ssk2154[at]columbia.edu
Rajan Shah, co-founder of SAMMA (South Asians in Media, Marketing & Entertainment) summed-up
his opening remarks with what could truly describe the rest of the April 19 talk with superstar composer A.R. Rahman. "Some of the most incredible, untapped ideas
are coming from South Asians," he told the packed audience on the top
floor of Asia Society HQ in Manhattan.
A few celebrities were sprinkled throughout
the crowd of music and film aficionados. Fashion photographer Nigel
Barker sat three rows down, close to a door so he could make a quick
exit, after he asked Rahman where he gets his inspiration from. DJ Rekha
sat in the front row and asked Rahman if he could come teach her class
at NYU. Salman Ahmed, the lead singer of Junoon was
also in the front row (see SAJAforum coverage of his recent SAJA event).
The 44-year-old music and movie composer was his typical humble self as he was interviewed by Anjula
Acharia-Bath CEO of Desi Hits. His answers came through a soft-spoken
voice that spouted short and simple explanations to his multiple
Grammy, Academy and Golden Globe awards.
"I just want to get to
know the man behind the music," said Acharia-Bath. She was not
alone--the audience peppered Rahman with questions about his upcoming
album, his personal life, his thoughts on Bollywood and his upcoming Jai
Ho: The Journey Home world tour. The tour launches at Nassau Coliseum on June 11 before heading across the US and to other countries. It will
encompass dance performances as well as musical numbers from Rahman's
well-known scores.
Rehman spoke about the spirituality of his work--how he cleanses to concentrate on his work, and how he ensures that there are no cell phones in the studio. He tells Acharia-Bath, almost bashfully, how he began as an electrical engineer, but his mother wanted him to follow in his father's footsteps. R.K. Shekhar was a well-known composer for Malayalam and Tamil movies.
"My first movie, I thought it was going to be my last movie," he said. "So I wanted to do my best and then leave it."
Watch a recording of a live SAJA Twitcam video of Salman Ahmad's talk with Daljit Dhaliwal of PBS WorldFocus. Watch him sing by at the 58-minute mark. The event, as part of Islam Awareness Week, took place at Columbia Journalism School and was co-sponsored by ASMA & MSA on Wednesday, Feb. 17. 2010 (you can grab an embed code at the link above).
Every author likes to think his or her book is one of a kind, but Salman Ahmad's truly is - and not just because it is the first South Asian book to feature a foreward by Melissa Etheridge, Grammy-winning American singer.
"Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star's Revolution," is by Ahmad, the lead singer of Pakistan's most famous living musician (the late, great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan used to hold that title) and has the lofty goals of affecting changing in Pakistan, the Muslim world and in West. From the Simon & Schuster website:
==> Listen live, or later to a recording: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/saja/2010/02/09/music-vijay-iyer (you
can set an e-mail reminder for yourself at that link) Or
call-in to listen and/or talk to him at +1-347-324-5991. Send your questions/comments via e-mail to saja[at]columbia.edu
(subject = webcast) of via Twitter @sajahq.
You can also use the
chatroom that will be open at the link above to ask live questions. You
can also post your questions in the comments section below.
2009: The year British-Indian R&B artist Jay Sean topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 charts with "Down" and the year Indian-American jazz musician Vijay Iyer and his Vijay Iyer Trio's "Historicity" album was the most honored jazz album of the year. The latest accolade: He topped the fourth annual Village Voice Jazz Critics' Poll. From the VV article by Francis Davis:
[CATCH THE SAJA/SAMMA WEBCAST WITH JAY SEAN on Friday, October 15, 2010: http://bit.ly/sajammajay ]
This is an unusual post for two reasons:
I am going to do some self-plagiarizing and re-use a lot of content I used in a previous post.
And much more importantly, it's about a South Asian who's hit the top of the U.S. music charts.
Jay Sean, a 28-year-old British singer/rapper/hip-hopper, whose real name is Kamaljit Singh Jhooti, has moved up one spot to hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart (the listing of the most popular songs in the US, as measured
by radio play, sales and online streaming).
His infectious song, called "Down" (featuring a big name in the world of hip-hop, Lil Wayne), is #1 on the chart that was released today. He replaced the Black-eyed Peas and is ahead of other major mainstream names, such as Miley Cyrus at #2 and Jay-Z, Rihanna and Kanye West at #3.
[That's Jay Sean at the Aug. 2009 India Day parade in NYC, photographed by another Jay, photojournalist Jay Mandal/On Assignment: jay[at]jaymandal.com if you want the high-rez version.]
The numbers in gray next to the #1 are last week's position (2); weeks on the Hot 100 (14); peak position (1). The song is also #1 on the Pop Songs and Radio Songs charts and #3 on Digital Songs and #6 on Ringtones and #4 on the Canadian Hot 100.
Asked by SAJAforum for a comment, SAJAer Nusrat Durrani, head of MTV World and an influential music executive, wrote: "Jay Sean hitting number 1 on the Billboard charts is great news and it was inevitable. He a class act and can compare with the very best global talent. MTV has been supporting him for many years. We are thrilled for Jay and MTV Iggy recently spoke to him at the Video Music Awards."
An e-mail I received this evening had a subject line that was partially cut-off by my e-mail reader:
I thought this was about a musical milestone I had been meaning to blog about but hadn't got around to.Turns out the full headline was "India's rare achievement in rocket technology." [And if you don't know about Ram Narayanan's famous mailing list, read all about it in this SAJAforum piece by Arun Venugopal from three years ago, "ACTIVISM: Ram Narayanan, Bilateral Booster."]
But the note did remind me that we should note here the musical milestone I was thinking of: a solo South Asian act hits #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart (the listing of the most popular songs in the US, as measured by radio play, sales and online streaming).
Jay Sean, a 28-year-old British singer/rapper/hip-hopper, whose real name is Kamaljit Singh Jhooti, has lit up the charts with an infectious song called "Down" (featuring a big name in the world of hip-hop, Lil Wayne). As of the week of Oct. 10, the song has been on the chart for 13 weeks (including six in the top 10).
The numbers in gray are last week's position (3); weeks on the Hot 100 (13); peak position (2).
There have been other acts with South Asian connections that have made it to the top of the U.S. charts: Norah Jones;M.I.A., Freddie Mercury, the late lead singer of Queen; Tony Kanal, bassist for No Doubt; Cliff Richard, who was born in Lucknow, India;Engelbert Humperdinck, who was born in Madras, India; Kim Thayil'sband, Soundgarden, hit #30 on the Hot 100 with "Blackhole Sun," but was #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart for seven weeks. (anyone else I missed?)
[Desi Spotting = finding South Asian elements in mainstream stories]
[REMINDER: SAJA's 15th Anniversary Convention & Career Expo, July 10-11 - just $50 for all workshops, panels, two receptions and gala dinner! http://www.saja.org/convention]
Yes, we've found South Asian connections in the Michael Jackson story.
Among the journalists covering Jackson's passing on ABC, Martin Bashir, co-host of "Nightline." Before he came to America for ABC, Bashir was famous for his extended, sit-down celebrity interviews, including the controversial 2003 documentary "Living with Michael Jackson" (see Wikipedia link).
The autopsy was performed by chief medical examiner-coroner for Los Angeles County, Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, who is no stranger to high-profile tabloid cases. He first received national attention during the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial.
Two memorable examples of how his name became part of the story, for a moment.
A likable witness with impressive medical credentials, a distinct Indian accent and near-impossible-to-pronounce last name, Sathyavagiswaran opened his testimony by giving Deputy Dist. Atty. Brian Kelberg permission to refer to him by his first name.
"If we call you Dr. Lakshmanan, you will not be offended, will you?" Kelberg asked.
"No," Sathyavagiswaran replied, returning the prosecutor's grin. "I will not."
Jay Leno's monologue included the following, in paraphrase: The coroner's name's real name is Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaranstein, but he dropped the "stein" because it was too ethnic.
The Jackson story received major attention in South Asia, as it did all over the world. See this screengrab of the Times of India website, almost 24 hours after his death.
SAJA Board member John Laxmi shared this note with those on the SAJA E-mail Discussion List:
If
you are, like me, mourning the King's passing, in addition to marveling
about the King's many talents, you might also wonder about the King's
Desi connections .... there are not many but consider this list:
(5) The King did a concert in Bombay (4) The King was interviewed by Martin Bashir famously a few years ago (3) The King featured a Bharata Natyam dancer in the video of one of his songs ("Black or White") [CORRECTION, as per comments below - it's an Odissi dancer]
(2) The King inspired the B(k)ollywood dancer Prabhu Deva
BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY,
(1) The King inspired the dance moves in approximately 10,000+ Bollywood song-dances.
What other Desi connections did we miss? Post your thoughts below.
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