Jet, SET, go: Indian DJs now play the hottest parties in the world
Jet, SET, go: Indian DJs now play the hottest parties in the world
Even for those who rave about techno music, the sub-genre of ‘hard techno’ doesn’t make for easy listening. “To be honest, it’s an acquired taste,” admits Kashish, Mumbai-based DJ and producer who goes by the stage name, Kollision. With not much of a fan base at home, she started throwing curated parties. It was at one such party that Kashish hosted a popular British DJ, Sterling Moss. “He liked my work and just like that, I got invited to play last month in one of the most iconic clubs in East London called Fold. It was a dream come true. My next international gig will be in a club in Rome,” says Kashish, who found her calling after a series of odd jobs in call centres, HR, marketing and real estate.
From a time not so far away, when one would wonder if mixing songs on a turntable could even qualify as a craft or career, cut to now when Indian DJs are clocking more miles than CEOs. From clubs in the world’s tech no capital Berlin to Roman castles and big fat Indian shaadis across Europe and the US, they’re spinning everywhere, and getting sweaty palms to clap and chant for them.
In the early 2000s, Kishore Kumar songs remixed by DJ and composer Aqeel Ali or DJ Aqeel, as he’s better known, threw the dance floor into a frenzy. Most millennials will remember chartbusters like ‘Kehdu Tumhe’ and ‘Tu Tu Hai Wahi’. While much has changed in the last 20 years, Ali is doing rather well for himself.
Cut to 2024, he has perfected what he calls ‘Bollywood Techno’ and ‘Indohouse’ for an international audience, with his Instagram full of jet-setting updates from New York to Melbourne, where he fills up concert-size venues. In fact, he is the only Indian DJ to play twice at the World Economic Forum in Davos for the likes of Bill Clinton.
“Weddings, parties, private shows, concerts, night clubs...I have performed everywhere. For the last year, I have been mixing Bollywood and techno, and even the ‘goras’ like it. After Diljit Dosanjh’s Coachella performance last year, interest in Bollywood music has gone up even more. International clubs, especially in the US and Australia, are hiring more Indian DJs because they have at least one Bollywood night a week,” says Ali on the phone before taking the stage at Vice in Dubai, hoping to get a crowd of 800-1,000.
One reason for this is that festival lineups and club scenes throughout the world want to diversify. But visas are a big hurdle, says Mumbai DJ Arjun Vagale. Some of his tracks like ‘She Said’ and ‘Terrakoz’ put him on the global map of electronic music. But having jet-setted across the world, he’s aware of the hoops Indian DJs have to jump through. “Getting a visa is so difficult, and the waiting time has only gone up. It makes more sense for UK and European clubs to spend on local talent or fly down DJs from neighbouring countries than fly in acts from India. It’s pure economics.”
No such visa woes plague an Indian wedding DJ, though. Sponsored by rich families who fly a bevy of pandits, caterers, designers and make-up artists, wedding DJs have seen business boom. Gaurav Malvai, who’s been behind the console for 27 years, says, “I am doing an international wedding gig every month now. Indian DJs have the versatility to switch from hard-core Bollywood to hip-hop and house. Foreign DJs don’t have a good grasp of Indian music,” says Malvai, who recently performed at the party thrown by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art at Venice Biennale to mark the opening of a M F Husain show. He also did sets at Reliance scion Akash Ambani and Shloka Mehta’s Harry Potter-themed pre-wedding bash and Deepika and Ranveer’s wedding functions in Italy.
But some electronic music artists are loath to play at weddings. “You know how a sangeet works. The same track is played 20 or 30 times. The Indian wedding DJ is treated like a jukebox,” says Vagale.
Some traverse both worlds with equal ease. Delhi-based DJ Avantika Bakshi, whose dance music blends elements from Arabic, Latin, Indian and African influences, has played in clubs in London, Miami, New York, Berlin and Nepal to NRI weddings and parties for luxury brands. “I had the most amazing time playing in 15th century castles in Rome where I was flown by the Maharaja of Jaipur for his birthday. I have even played at a Mexican wedding,” says Bakshi, who also performed at the Burning Man festival in 2022 and opened for Grammy-winning DJ Black Coffee.
Anish Sood aka Anyasa, who has been signed on by Anjunadeep, an independent record label based in London, did a 10-city US tour this spring, followed by appearances in Amsterdam, Mauritius and Bali. He says that being signed to an international label helps. “They already have international audiences. That fast-tracks your music reaching people in different parts of the world,” says Sood, pointing out that aping western DJs, as some Indian acts tend to do, isn’t enough to build an audience.
Madhav Shorey, aka Kohra, is another globetrotting DJ and founder of Qilla Records that promotes underground electronic music from India. “The highest figures for our sales are from Europe, and then the US, Brazil and Mexico. The audiences are overseas,” says Shorey.
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