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from ammocity.com music and media
his last album ‘prophesy’ propelled him into the conscious of the general record buying public with a nomination for the much lauded mercury music prize, one of the few respected awards in the british music industry calendar. talking with nitin and it’s obvious that, in spite of consistently delivering albums of amazing beauty and critical acclaim he doesn’t take much for granted. but he needn’t worry, the album is a more than fitting chapter in a career that has now produced 6 albums over the past 10 years. not to mention numerous film and television scores. back in 1995, nitin coincided the release of his second album, ‘migration’ with the independence day celebrations for india and pakistan. he followed this in 1997 with compositions for the 50th anniversary of the same celebrations writing music for 3 plays that were performed around the u.k. and so it is with much of sawhney’s output, that there is a method and meaning to his creative expression. his music tells stories not in a didactic sense but the information is there to be found should you be inclined to explore. sawhney grew up in rochester, kent during the 70’s when racism in the u.k. was at near fever pitch. rochester was an epicentre of militant right wing groups such as the national front who use violence and assault as part of their manifesto for a white britain. he was the only asian boy in his school where, ironically, the music teacher was a national front supporter who positively discouraged his natural love for music. not then, the easiest place for a boy of indian descent to grow into manhood. yet sawhney shows no sign of bitterness when we discuss this, rather he is a mountain of intellect on the subject of cultural convergence. nitin, “people try to treat the symptoms of racism rather than the cause which ultimately is how we educate. where we feed our insecurities into our children so that they become competitive rather than equip them with the tools of self-discipline. for instance if they were taught martial arts, meditation and yoga in schools i think we would have more well balanced, less aggressive kids who would be much more confident in themselves and not feel the need to develop prejudice which i believe is a function of insecurity. the concept of nationality just feeds these insecurities and is encouraged amongst the insecure, presumably because it serves the needs of someone in power. in reality, nationality, is meaningless and yet it’s used as a big hammer to beat people into submission. patriotism is what the neo-conservatives thrive on, a culture of fear. bush has linked good and evil with nationality, if you’re american you’re good and if you’re from the middle east you’re probably evil. he has cleverly made those associations in peoples minds and brainwashes them into accepting complete inhumanity to other people. at the moment there are 25 million people starving in ethiopia and yet if there were 4 american or british soldiers killed it would make world headlines. so the message is that humanity is not respected over nationality or power.“ nitin’s mother was an indian classical dancer whereas his father was a passionate listener of indian classical music, flamenco or brazilian. he had piano lessons from 5 years old and then moved on to flamenco guitar then jazz piano with some tabla at a local temple.
it’s a problem that anyone of colour faces where an industry tends to target on the basis of race or culture. yes, sawhney has indian parents but why should this distinction alone position his music under a specific and often marginalised genre? the consequence of this labelling drastically affects how an album will be marketed and distributed to its audience. nevertheless, it is genuinely difficult to categorise his music, which must be a bugger for the marketing department, but i guess that is the point. it’s good to hear music that hasn’t been born on the spreadsheet being released from labels like v2, perhaps they’ve figured out that good music is what will save the record industry. sawhney's thinking and interest is evident in his recordings, he refutes nationality and thus his music flows effortlessly from flamenco guitar to brazilian house, hip hop, funked up, ‘sexed up’ with asian flavours. and i do mean effortlessly, his new album features collaborations with an ear tingling array of vocal talent including tina grace, reena bhardwaj, natacha atlas, matt hayles (aqualung) and kevin mark trail (the streets), taio, jacob golden and alani (blur). it’s been exquisitely crafted, there’s a story of sorts, largely autobiographical as nitin draws from his experiences of a pluralist cultural upbringing. a couple of samples from speeches by enoch powell (rivers of blood) and martin luther king (state of the union) set the chronology for events. it’s a great piece of work, perhaps a bit more accessible than previous outings, it rarely gets chin strokey and we liked it. it’s worth snooping around for various mix’s on vinyl for those of you wanting to introduce some freshness into your headphones. nitin regards music as an art without boundaries and is not one to consciously fuse different musical forms together for the sake of it as he tells me “this would sound contrived, whereas i tend to float between forms as they seem to fit. i can’t conceive of creating music of singular culture, to me that smells a bit racist. people ask me how i mix different forms together, well i say ‘it’s the default fucking position!’ it’s where i start from”. maybe we should send a copy to the white house. nitin sawhney’s album, human, is out now listen to tracks from human
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