“Bombay, U.K., Yuba City”
Bhangra Music and the Engendering of Diaspora
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19463571 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gayatri Gopinath (Columbia University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1995 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 303-321 |
| Publication date | 1995-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Diaspora A Journal of Transnational Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1044-2057 • E-ISSN: 1911-1568 |
| Publisher | University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.3138/diaspora.4.3.303 |
| OpenAlex | W4244941089 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
In his 1992 song, “Mera Laung Gawacha,” British Indian deejay and record producer Bally Sagoo mixes the voice of Rama, a female, British-based Indian folksinger, with that of Cheshire Cat, a male dance-hall rapper who (judging by his appearance on the compactdisc jacket) reads visually as white. Rama sings a traditional folk song from the North Western Indian state of Punjab, while Cheshire Cat provides the song with its raggamuffin beat, making it eminently danceable. The voices—one in Punjabi, the other in Jamaican patois—together narrate a multilingual, interracial tale of heterosexual desire. Yet the song eludes an easy reading as a utopian narrative of cultural, racial, and sexual harmony: it remains unclear whether the male and female voices are actually singing to each other, an ambiguity underscored by the song’s video, in which Rama and the rapper never share the same frame. Indeed, the video depicts Cheshire Cat as a black man with dreadlocks, which suggests that it is not entirely acceptable for a (presumably) white man to do raggamuffin, particularly when it is a South Asian (Sagoo) who is employing him. The separate framing of the two singers also implies that it is not entirely acceptable to have the black man explicitly address sexually suggestive lyrics to an older South Asian woman. In addition, Rama appears sedately dressed in traditional Punjabi attire, while the Cheshire Cat stand-in provides all the movement in the video and acts as its visual focus
Art · Dance · Diaspora · Linguistics · Literature · Lyrics · Narrative · Singing · Sociology · Swahili · Visual arts · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Gender Studies · History · Socioeconomic Development in Asia · South Asian Cinema and Culture
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,67 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2023 (4) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |