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Fabulous four
Navtej Singh Rehal and Thomas Sardorf met through mutual friend and Scandinavian music producer Janus Barnewitz. The result was the formation of the Indo-Danish hip-hop duo Bombay Rockers, who stormed the charts in late 2003 with the peppy “A
ri Ari”. The single featuring Overseas, another hip-hop duo from Denmark with similar origins, received a lot of airplay. Their unique hip-hop, rap sound with a dash of bhangra made them an instant hit amongst the hip-hop fans all around the world. After the massive success of “Ari Ari”, a studio album was the next step.
“With ‘Introducing’ we launched a whole new genre of music to the world audience,” says Navtej, currently in India on a promotional tour for Overseas’ first studio album, ‘All or Nothing’. ‘Introducing’ included other popular hits like “Rock tha Party” and “Sexy Mama”, which were off-the-hook hip-hop tracks.
Whole new genre
“Well, we did what we had to with our first album. That’s how most of the music was made for ‘Introducing.’ Impulsively. We do it our own way,” says Thomas. “The only thing that our sound enthuses is good vibrations, good times. We make our music to make our listeners happy. No sad stuff for us.”
The huge success of ‘Introducing’ put Bombay Rockers alongside the international music brigade. It was no longer making music for themselves, rather it was all about the fans. It was around this time that Navtej and Thomas hit a block. “We couldn’t write a single track for six to seven months. Our brains were clogged. It was like our creative juices ran out and we had reached an abrupt stop,” Navtej recollects. “We felt it was time we stopped experimenting with our music and strictly adhered to what fans want,” Navtej adds.
This led to their second studio album ‘Crash n Burn’ but before that the duo had to face another hurdle — a fallout with the record label. Eventually the album saw the light of day but fans were not very happy. The album included half-Punjabi and half-English vocals by Navtej and Thomas and the first single was “Khushi”, a typical Bombay Rockers feel-good song. “Out of Control” with Arabic influences, had Navtej lending ’70s style vocals.
Inspired by the likes of The Neptunes, Timbaland and Punjabi Mc, Bombay Rockers’ current endeavours have resulted in “Aja Nachle” the first single on the overseas album ‘All or Nothing’ another up-tempo track with an “Ari Ari” vibe. “Well, they did us a favour by featuring in ‘Ari Ari’ and it was time to return the favour,” says Thomas.
Overseas, which consists of Hardeep Singh aka Soulja Brown and Daniel aka Big Dip is looking to make it big with ‘All or Nothing’ their first record after 12 years of struggle on the streets of Denmark.
DEBAYAN DEB
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