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CORPORATE / EVENTS - BASEMENT BHANGRA 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY
Featuring Visuals by FICTIVE
Basement Bhangra 10 Year Anniversary
April 20th, 2007
Hammerstein Ballroom, NYC
With The Dhol Foundation, Bikram Singh, Panjabi MC, DJ Rekha and more
Most club events in the city are shorter-lived than mayflies. But the dance party known as Basement Bhangra seems to have the shelf life of Twinkies. It just goes on and on.
Basement Bhangra - which normally fills S.O.B.'s on Wednesdays with its patented fusion of South-Asian, hip hop and dance music - will celebrate its 10th anniversary tonight. It will do so in a space four times its normal capacity: Hammerstein Ballroom (34th St. between Seventh and Eighth).
The basic bhangra style has roots in percussive folk music from the Punjab region of India and Pakistan. But it didn't find a modern voice until the 1980s, when British kids of Punjabi descent began mixing the thwacking tabla sound with elements of house, soul and rap.
Rekha says the music's production values have greatly improved in the time since. "At the start, it would be too tinny, with not enough low end," she says. "But the natural trajectory of time has made it more organic. And the talent pool is wider now." Tonight's show will boast some of the style's greatest performers, including Panjabi MC, the Dhol Foundation and the New York-bred Bikram Singh. Rekha says her weekly event has been bringing in a more racially diverse crowd, from a wider area, over the years, all drawn to the joy of this feverishly danceable sound. Given its drive, it's no surprise that tonight's party (which starts at 9) has no formal end. As Rekha says, "It will last as long as we can make it go."
Excerpt from "A beat generation, Basement Bhangra marks 10 years of dance parties"
BY JIM FARBER
NY DAILY NEWS MUSIC CRITIC
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