CITY OF SOUTH ASIAN BEATS
Bhangra fest is back for second year
After a successful start in Vancouver last year, the City of Bhangra Festival is expanding in all the right places.
“We are now in the heart of the community that we are speaking to,” says festival artistic director Tarun Nayar about adding Surrey, which boasts a huge, growing South Asian diaspora, as an event location.
Put on by the Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration (VIBC), the six-day festival of Bhangra (Punjabi folk arts) runs deep with 350 performers, including international superstar Nucleya turning up the volume on the electronic dance music floor.
“I think it is only a matter of time that this music festival gets to a level where it is competing with mainstream festivals. Especially in this part of the country,” says Asad Khan, a.k.a. DJ Khanvict, who will be playing the festival.
Khan runs Decibel Entertainment, a Surrey-based DJ company that sends DJs to jobs around the world. He and his team of 16 DJs are in huge demand for weddings and parties, but he says a festival like City of Bhangra offers a chance to creatively cut loose.
“Music festivals are huge right now, so any chance you get to play any festival is a huge opportunity,” says Khan, who left electrical engineering to be a DJ. “You get exposure in front of a lot of people. As a DJ, it’s also really good because you have much more freedom than you do at a private event. It’s a blank canvas. You can play the kind of set you want to play.”
What Khan wants to play these days is a heart-pumping blend of old and new. His fusion approach has him taking the old-school sounds of traditional Punjabi music and giving it a fresh spin.
“It is as simple as tweaking the sounds to make it more modern, to make it more electronic because the younger crowd is very attracted to that electronic sound. That is huge now,” says Khan. “As a DJ you have a lot more fun when you mix the two. Then you have taken something that might be considered old school and updated it, revamped it. It’s no different than taking a classic Michael Jackson (song) and using it. That’s the cool thing about music, it allows you to connect generations.”
This fusion idea can also be applied to the festival itself. While it celebrates the art form of Bhangra, it is also blending in different forms of entertainment.
“I’m looking to satisfy my own deep cravings and desires, you know,” says Nayar, who is part of the popular world music group Delhi 2 Dublin. “I am a whole person that is stimulated in so many different ways, as are a lot of other people.”
Proof of that is the program Nayar has pulled together.
From industry workshops to full-on dance parties to a daylong family celebration and the brand new short film festival, City of Bhangra is well stocked and well rounded. Case in point is the big get of speaker Rupi Kaur.
The bestselling author, poet and multimedia artist is widely considered the voice of her generation. Her book Milk and Honey sold more than one million copies and was a New York Times bestseller for almost a year. She will be at the Vogue Theatre on June 14.
“I’m out in the world hustling with my band and playing all sorts of events all year, so I’m sort of keeping an eye out for what’s the freshest sounds and talent I can bring to the stage,” says Nayar.
“I think I work hard and Rupi and Nucleya have been on my list since the beginning. It’s taken a couple of years to materialize those two things.”
Kaur’s involvement with the fes- tival offers another tone and note to the event. Abuse, femininity and love play large roles in Kaur’s overall message. While she is a proud South Asian, her message of celebrating survival is universal.
“I think they are messages not just for the South Asian community. I think that the reason she has blown up is because she speaks to more people than just people in her own particular demographic of 20-year-old South Asian women,” says Nayar. “I think that is one of things we do struggle with.
“I think there is such a thing as minority narratives that the mainstream likes that sort of says ‘OK, well you’re brown, so there must be some gang violence somewhere in your history or there must be some misogyny happening.’ I think one of the things we are really trying to do is to break out of these stereotypes.” And what better way to do that than throwing a big, all-inclusive party?