The Queen of Bhangra Music
By Mo Shah

Rekha Malhotra, better known as “DJ Rekha,” is one of the most successful South Asian musicians in America. She is also the most brazenly anti-status quo, straight-talking, no minced words kind of person you’ll ever meet. The queen of bhangra music, Rekha is a DJ with no equal in America. In her early thirties, Rekha has single-handedly carved a niche for herself and for South Asian music that has everyone throwing their hands in the air and swinging to bhangra.

Basement Bhangra is the cult party founded by Rekha that started it all. Called variously the “the must-dance destination for young South Asians,” “a Mecca for the rapidly growing number of Asian hip-hop fanatics,” and “New York’s most popular South Asian party,” Basement Bhangra has the kind of street credibility that DJs dream about. It has established one sure fact in the last six years: Rekha knows how to throw a party like no other. It is the only place where you’re likely to find Indian immigrants, American Sikhs, Connecticut gentry, and Pakistani preppy bankers, all dancing to the contagious beat of bhangra. Who would have thought that Punjabi folk music could be so popular in downtown Manhattan?

	Rekha's Company

In contrast to the welcoming space where Rekha now celebrates bhangra, the area where she grew up had no shops that sold Indian music and no clubs where Indian music was played. About forty minutes by train from SOB’s stands Queens, which has a sprawling South Asian population with chewy paans, pirated tapes of Indian movies, and the best kebabs this side of the Atlantic. When Rekha was growing up, the only place to hear Indian music was at home. “My parents would throw dinner parties, and everyone would listen to the latest Indian songs on cassettes and dance to them,” says Rekha.

Rekha's Top Ten (in no particular order)

1 Dont Stop till Bollywood by Bollywood Freaks, Be Like Water
2 Galang by M.I.A, Showbiz Records
3 They Reminisce Over You by Pete Rock and CL Smooth, Uptown Records
4 Mustt Mustt by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Massive Attack Remix, Real World Records
5 Pyar Zindagi Hai, Muqqadar Ka Sikandar Soundtrack
6 Homebase by Dhizan and Kamien, Six Degrees Records
7 Lean Back with Janjua by Tigerstyle, Whitelabel
8 Real Love by Mary J. Blige, Uptown Records
9 Panjab featuring Ranjit Manji by Panjabi MC, Whitelabel
10 Bhangra Fever by Midival Pundits, Six Degrees Records

Inspired by the music, Rekha began mixing her own music. But it was a nightmare to get it played anywhere because there were no clubs that would consider playing Indian music at that time. “When I started to venture out, I found that the club circuit did not have any Indian parties at all,” she says, smiling at the recollection.

Meanwhile, Britain was rocking with bhangra. People like Bally Sagoo were using turntables to mix bhangra in all kinds of novel ways. Bhangra, a folk music performed in villages in Punjab to celebrate the harvest, is characterized by the beat of the dhol drum. British DJs took this folk music and played it in clubs to great success. Soon, there were throes of club-goers shaking their shoulders and putting their hands up in the sky, like true Punjabi farmers!

Rekha thinks that the openness of college parties to fusion bhangra music turned the tide in favor of Indian music in New York. “I remember the first time I went, and I was amazed to see the reaction a bhangra song would get,” marvels Rekha. “Everyone threw their hands up… it was one quick swoop.” Finally, in 1994, Rekha landed her first gig at a mainstream club called Demorara and since then, her popularity has soared and her ever-expanding loyal fans have been following her from club to club.

When asked whether bhangra was the only kind of music she played, Rekha is quick to point that she also plays Hindi, hip-hop, house, and reggae. It’s ironic, she says, that when she started, people wanted her to minimize the bhangra and hip-hop because they didn’t want thugs coming to their party. Music that is exclusionary is unattractive, both artistically and politically, to Rekha. “Somebody made a comment to me at Salman Rushdie’s wedding, which I just DJ’d,” she said shaking her head. “She said ‘Why are you playing that black music—there are no black people here.’ That was surprising for me, because it brought me right back to the time I started DJing.”

Apart from Basement Bhangra, Rekha also hosts a number of other parties in New York and internationally. One of her other enormously popular parties is Mutiny: a huge, thunderous party where a host of DJs plays South Asian fusion music. “At the end of the day, I’m a DJ,” she says, “and my goal is to find that next great record to play.”

And Rekha relies on her own instincts when choosing her music. “I don’t believe in heroes,” she says dryly. But she does admire some people musically, foremost amongst them the British DJs Bally Sagoo and Punjabi MC. “What very few people know about Punjabi MC is that he’s probably one of the most skilled turntablists that are out there,” she says. And then there are others, but “a lot of them are assholes,” she laughs. It is only when Rekha is talking about her peers that one suddenly remembers how unprecedented her success is as one of the few female DJs in a world of testosterone-driven male DJs. She speaks with the confidence of someone who considers neither her ethnicity nor her gender anything but an asset in the music industry. Asked whether she’s satisfied with her life, “Hell no,” she replies, “I’m an artist—I want challenges and opportunities.”

And then she left, handing me a few flyers for the next party: “Bhangra Against Bush.” Paradoxically both an astute businesswoman and a compassionate socialist, Rekha is also politically quite active. “Maybe I’ll alienate some of those Republican investment bankers,” she chuckles when she sees me looking at the flyer. I did go to the party and it was great—the music was fantastic, the air was festive and those not interested in politics also had a fabulous time. But there she was, spinning with her ear plugs to her ears, unabashed in her opinions and absolutely confident in her talent.

Photographs by Robert H. Petrie