DJ Rekha calls Daler Mehndi the Punjabi Bobby McFerrin (via Tablatronic):
Mehndi was bhangra lite and a diversion, says DJ Rekha of New York’s hip Bhangra Basement club: “Even back when he was big, he was kind of like the Will Smith of bhangra. Not so respected. Now, after the scandal, his position in the scene is that he doesn’t really have one.”…
There’s a new breed of younger, tougher British bhangra kings in Rishi Rich and Panjabi MC. Rich, in particular, has taken the music to heights Mehndi never dreamed of, fusing it with hip-hop to create a more aggressive sound that has Britney Spears and Ricky Martin queuing up to ask the 26-year-old to add a global street edge to their singles… Rich’s hardening of bhangra takes it back to its roots. As the music of the dry farms of the Punjab, bhangra lyrics were often gritty, and even today Punjabi artists are the most outspoken in India, singing about sex, drugs and crime just as their hip-hop peers do in the West…
In 1999 an American critic, stunned by the ecstatic crowd at one of his New Jersey concerts, declared Mehndi “bigger than the Beatles.”… “You know, I was a very bad taxi driver,” he says. “Always looking in the mirror at myself and imagining I would be a big star in music…”
At a recent recording session in Bombay, he still looked like a cartoon king, decked out in a black turban with sequined band, gold bracelets and chains, and a bright red designer shirt. (“I want the fans to look at Daler Mehndi like a maharajah,” Mehndi explains.)…
And there’s this conversational pearl:
Mehndi: Dung dung dara dara dung dung.
Technician: Ding ding da di da da DAK?
Tumbi player: Ta blakakak dak dak?
Mehndi: Neh. Dabadung dakadaka dakadaka DING!…
