Mathangi Mian made the shortlist for the UK’s most prestigious music award, the Mercury Prize, today (thanks, brimful). The Kaiser Chiefs are favored to win. Coldplay’s also on the list, but rumour is that this year’s da bomb in Englistan: M.I.A. has a shot to balance out last year’s pick, the already established Franz Ferdinand.

Previous winners include Dizzee Rascal, PJ Harvey, Badly Drawn Boy, Portishead and Talvin Singh, for his groundbreaking OK in 1999. Sometimes the Prize gives me the heebie-jeebies. They once nominated the Spice Girls, which is neither desi nor kosher.

Proving yet again just how much cooler the UK is, there have been loads of desi nominees out of the 10-12 bands shortlisted each year. In fact, from 1998-99 there were two Asian bands each year. It’s like NYC where you’ll often have multiple desi parties or arts events on the same day because the market can support them.

  • M.I.A., Arular, 2005
  • Susheela Raman, Salt Rain, 2001
  • Nitin Sawhney, Beyond Skin, 2000
  • Talvin Singh, OK, 1999 (winner)
  • Black Star Liner, Bengali Bantam Youth Experience!, 1999
  • Asian Dub Foundation, Rafi’s Revenge, 1998
  • Cornershop, When I Was Born for the 7th Time, 1998
  • Apache Indian, No Reservations, 1993

Asians in Media complains that Singh’s win didn’t have coattails:

Remember the infamous ‘Asian underground revolution’ that was supposed to happen when Talvin Singh won a Mercury prize in 1999? Vivek Bald’s excellent documentary Mutiny Sounds showed how that fell apart when industry executives could not grasp how to sell it. Raghav seems to be in a similar bind. One the one hand he seems to be marketed only for Asians. At the same time faces resistance from those who don’t know what to do with an Asian artist. [Link]

Doesn’t the list remind you of the Booker Prize? (Winners: Salman Rushdie for Midnight’s Children, Arundhati Roy for The God of Small Things, Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul for In a Free State, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala for Heat and Dust, Yann Martel for The Life of Pi, Michael Ondaatje for The English Patient. Nominees: Rushdie for every damn thing — The Moor’s Last Sigh, The Satanic Verses and Shame, Rohinton Mistry for A Fine Balance, Such a Long Journey and Family Matters, Anita Desai for In Custody and Fasting, Feasting, Naipaul for A Bend in the River, Romesh Gunesekara for Reef, Monica Ali for Brick Lane.)

Wiki has a great, detailed M.I.A. bio. This last link is in brimful’s honor: someone actually decoded the lyrics to Cornershop’s ‘Brimful of Asha’ and posted them on techie site Kuro5hin, of all places.