Lomdon, Feb. 05, 2008
Surinder Singh
NRI singer Malkit Singh will become the first Punjabi singer
to be honoured with an MBE. He is the first bhangra artist to
make it into the Queen's Honours List, which is published twice
every year to honour people with a record of distinguished and
long-standing service to the nation or the community.
Bhangra king Malkit Singh hopes to get the Queen singing Tootak
tootak with him when he collects his Member of the British Empire
(MBE) medal this March.
Malkit Singh was born in Husseinpur village of Punjab's Jalandhar
district and came to Britain in 1984. He lives in Birmingham with
his family, including wife Daljit, daughters Amardip and Harpreet
and son Manraj, are all looking forward to joining him at the
Palace.
He said, “I will greet the Queen with traditional Sikh
greetings. If requested I might also sing for her. This is a very
big honour for me. I am really excited about going to the palace.
I have won lots of awards but this is something special, not just
for me or Punjabis but all Indians."
The Birmingham-based singer is listed by the Guinness Book
as the world's largest selling bhangra artiste.
The terms Bhangra New
Asian dance music.
This term is adopted by Sharma, Hutnyk and Sharma (1996, pp.33--41)
as a catch-all term for a variety of popular musics associated
with the British South Asian community. The terms Bhangra and
'post-bhangra' also cover these musics, which may have little
or nothing to do with the Punjabi traditional dance (see §2(ii)
above) from which the name comes (cf. Baumann, 1990). They arose
as a South Asian counterpart, in Southall and Birmingham, to
the club and dance scene of the 1980s and 90s and owe a debt
to black dance musics
coming from the USA, such as soul, hip-hop and rap.
The earliest bhangra bands were formed on the immigrant Punjabi
wedding circuit playing traditional music, including that used
for the bhangra dance. This traditional music had less and less
appeal to the generations of South Asians born and raised in
Britain, who more often identified with black musics such as
reggae. At the beginning of the 1980s bands such as Alaap and
Heera integrated these sound-system-based musics into the more
traditional forms being played on the wedding circuit. As recordings
and experience of this music spread through young South Asian
communities, a club and dance scene coalesced around these bands,
with gigs and raves
taking place both during the day and at night.
As the scene developed it became more diverse and moved beyond
the original designation of 'bhangra'. Artists such as Apache
Indian incorporated elements of ragga into their music, while
Bally Sagoo mixed in drum 'n' bass to produce 'acid bhangra'
and turned his attention to Hindi film songs, producing re-mixed
versions of hits on albums such as Bollywood Classics and Bollywood
Flashbacks (both 1994). These artists have achieved great popularity
in India itself, with many of these innovations feeding back
into the South Asian popular music and dance scene. More recently,
groups such as the Asian Dub Foundation and Fun^Da^Mental have
mixed South Asian
instrumentation and lyrics with rap, producing music with an
explicitly political message, while Cornershop, a guitar-based
band, has roduced rock-oriented music.
Malkit Singh
After his first super hit "Tutak Tutak Tutian", he
strode from the mustard fields of Punjab to the chrome-curtained
studios in London. If you have heard of 'Kurri Garam Jayee,
Kurri Naram Jayee' and 'Gur Naloon Iskh Mitha' you know who
I am talking about. Malkit needs no introduction. In his new
album, his 20th, produced by Universal, Singh jams with Apache
Indian and Britain's latest hit band "Payasyougo".
With his amazing voice and new album Millennium mixes, he stands
today at number 2 on the top 10 UK Bhangra charts. The new video
for Gur Naloon Iskh Mitha explains why every wedding today plays
Malkit till the bride crosses over the threshold. Malkit remains
today's favorite, tomorrow's legend.
Malkit Singh has taken the Punjabi vernacular to wide-ranging
experiments to rap with strains of underground grunge, hip-hop
and Hindi film music, picking up along the way, 12 number-one
hits of the British charts that have turned the village boy
into a multi-millionaire.
He was born with a mercurial flair for the arts.
When he was just four-years old, his singing ability won him
admission into a school meant for six-year-olds. Ever since,
the thirty-something Malkit Singh has maintained his head start
on the competition, taking Punjabi bhangra music into realms
previously unexplored.
True to his name, Malkit, which translates to One Has
Rules The World, has taken his music from the Punjabi
vernacular to cross-cultural experiments ranging from rap and
house to the Hindi film screens. The traditional folk music
has gone from the relative obscurity of a Punjabi village to
the heady heights of a world stage. As the music spreads its
wings across the globe, Malkit Singh encompasses an audience
of all ages.
In 1981, his winning of the third Punjab collegiate competition
award was marked with a "golden star" pendant. Malkit
adopted the name for his band, and the Golden Star band is as
synonymous to Malkit as the E-Street Band is to Bruce Springsteen.
As we move into 2002, Malkit Singh is still winning new audiences
in the exploding world of bhangra and in the process he's opening
the floodgates for many upcoming Bhangra artists.
From the classic debut song Nach Gidde Wich, the infectious-feel-good
Gurh Nalo Ishq Mitha Boliyan [an anthology of traditional
folk songs], his trademark anthem Tootak Tootak Thootian (Hey
Jamalo), these songs became the benchmark sound of the 1980s.
Furthermore, with his 90s and Y2K excursions Midas Touch,
Forever Gold and the smash-hit Kudi Patoley Wargi, the songs
went on to become some of the most popular songs and videos
in modern Bhangra music history.
As an international recording and touring artiste, performances
at internationally acclaimed venues have further cemented his
dominance of his music genius. Astonishingly, twenty-seven countries
have already witnessed the live phenomenon that is Malkit Singh
and his backing band Golden Star.
An enviable plethora of prestigious accolades have been bestowed
on Malkit Singh over the years including the honour of being
the biggest selling Bhangra artists in the world, recognised
by the Millennium Edition of the Guinness Book of World Records
in 2000. That follows his Recognition of the City of Los Angeles
for Services to the Indian Community in 1997, Best Punjabi Male
Singer and the Most Outstanding Track of the Bhangra Era for
Tootak Tootak Thootian (Hey Jamalo). In 1998, the former Indian
premier Mr. I. K. Gujral presented the Punjabi Cultural Award
for services to music to Malkit Singh at his official residence
- the sole recipient of this unrivalled honour. Earlier in 2001,
Malkit Singh was honoured with the Guru Nanak University in
Amritsars 27th Convocation Gold Medal Award Doctorate
for his services to Punjabi Music and Culture.
Malkit Singh - Bhangras Saviour - is back with his 19th
new album recorded in India with Jahawar Wattal in Delhi and
purified in the UK. Bhangra is definitely here to stay with
Malkit Singh as the purveyor of new school Bhangra
hail
the revolution, long live the King!