Not long ago, I was cajoled by my better half into coming out of DJ retirement for an Indian Independence day Bhangra party sponsored by NET-IP Philadelphia. It’s been about three years since I’ve DJed even a house party, and for two of those years we’ve been new parents, listening to a lot of “Wow wow, wubbzy!” on Noggin (an insidious little brain-hammer of a song), and not much in the way of desi dance music.

I’ve been trying to get back into it a bit these past couple of weeks (no more grousing, I promise!), and I have a preliminary playlist of old and new favorites. My main focus has been on hip hop-influenced Hindi and Punjabi music:

  • “Right here right now” from Bluffmaster
  • “Singh is Kinng” from Singh is Kinng (this song was panned by Mr. Cicatrix as a “hot mess,” but it makes my son nod his head and do a little bhangra motion with his wrist every time)
  • “Uncha Lamba” remix by Dr Zeus, from Welcome 2 Da Club (original song from the movie Welcome)
  • “Kiya Kiya” remix by Dr. Zeus, from the same album (Puran likes this one too, and cutely starts singing along to the repetitive chorus — “Kiya kiya, kya kiya, kya kiya hai sanam”)
  • “Glassy” by Jazzy B/Sukshinder Shinda (not to be confused with Hard Kaur’s “Glassy” — a song that I’m a little tired of)
  • “Pyaar Karke” from Pyaar ke Side Effects (can’t go wrong)
  • “Teri Baaton Mein” by Raghav (a brilliant conjoining of a sweet Hindi love song to a well-known dancheall riddim)
  • “Basement Bhangra Anthem”, by DJ Rekha (with Wyclef), off of the Basement Bhangra CD

What tracks am I missing? I will also probably play classic bhangra, and popular Bollywood tracks like “Bhool Bhulaiyya,” “Mauja hi Mauja,” “Ya Ali,” “Meter Down,” “Om Shanti Om,” “Soni de Nakhre” (“oh kaindi e, Pump up the jam!”), and “Pappu Can’t Dance,” but the above playlist is probably the music I’m most into right now.

Below the fold, a couple of technical things related to DJ software, for anyone who might be interested… and a little something extra.

The big change that’s happened over the past few years is that it no longer really makes sense to use CD players, even for burned CDs. DJ software (I am using Virtual DJ) has gotten good enough that it seems more efficient to simply run the show from a laptop. Virtual DJ in particular has a nice beat-matching facility, which makes it much, much easier to transition between tracks (the software doesn’t, of course, work for traditional Bhangra, which it tends to read at nearly twice the actual rhythm).

What you lose on a laptop, of course, is the ability to cue tracks in advance using headphones, but if you know the tracks you’re going to play well enough, it’s not a huge loss. It’s also a bit annoying to be dependent on a mouse, giving you effectively only one hand; by contrast, with DJ CD players and a mixer, you can use both hands to, say, cue a track and slide the cross-fader at the same time. But the other advantages are too great to ignore. If there are any “real” DJs reading this, how are you doing it these days?

If any of you are going to be in Philadelphia this Saturday, we will be at Anjou; it would be nice to meet you.