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The royal touch

With his prized possession Malkit Singh

Malkit Singh is an elated man. Ever since he was awarded the ‘Most Excellent Order of the British Empire’ by Queen Elizabeth II, the original king of Bhangra hasn’t stopped smiling. And why shouldn’t he be happy? After all he is the first Indian artiste to be given this honour. “Actually, I was shocked when I came to know that I was in the awardees’ list. You see, for any tourist, a visit to London is incomplete without seeing Buckingham Palace. I too went to see the palace and even clicked photos with guards outside during my first visit to the U.K. in 1984. But I never thought I would get to enter the palace and receive such an honour from the Queen herself,” says Singh, settled in the U.K.

He is brimming with pride, as he talks about the process that got him the award. “The process starts four-five years before the actual announcement is made. The criterion is that the person should have made some valuable contribution to a particular field or a community. It is friends and fans who recommend your name to the list, on the basis of which the award committee does its research and takes the final decision. It feels good to know that people think I am worthy of receiving the MBE medal. It shows their affection towards me,” explains Singh in his Punjabi-laced Hindi.

The journey from Jalandhar to London has been a long but fruitful one. “You can make a film out of my life. It’s has been an interesting one, with ups and downs and finally a happy ending,” says Malkit who was embroiled in a trafficking case.

Despite living abroad for two decades, Singh is strongly rooted and his language gives away the fact. Without any British accent, he starts talking in English but moves to Hindi and sooner or later goes full-fledged into Punjabi, unconsciously though. “In the years that Punjabi has grown in the U.K., it has declined in India…that’s sad,” he laments.

Singh has nothing encouraging to say about the music scene in India. “Frankly, I don’t listen to Bollywood music anymore. I think they are getting far too repetitive and too westernised.”

The same holds true for Bhangra music, a trend he set off with his “Gud Naal Ishq Mita” and “Tootak Tootak Tootiya” in the ’80s. “I had to remix Bhangra with modern instrumentation and beats because I was catering to a different audience altogether. Woh toh majboori thi. But I never thought it would spoil things back in my own country. Why do we need to remix our own culture for our own people? What I remix in the U.K. is better than what I hear in India. No one seems to be using Indian instruments these days. I think it would be easier to find original Punjabi music and folk songs in the U.K than in India now,” says Singh who went into the millennium edition of the Guinness Book of World Records in 2000, as the highest selling Bhangra artiste in the world.

Though active in the U.K. and elsewhere with shows and albums, Singh has been a low-key presence in India, of late. “I have so many shows lined up abroad that I don’t have time. Also, it is not easy to bring my band, Golden Star, down to India for shows, as it becomes too expensive. But now, I have decided to form a band in India as well and have met musicians in this regard. Now on, I will concentrate more on India,” he promises.

It’s a long time since Singh came up with an album, the last one being 21st Chapter Nachna Aaj Nachna, which wasn’t released in India. Are any in the pipeline? “I am working on an album, with 10 new tracks. The recording is yet to start but I plan to launch it by September. It will be a global release,” he says.

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