Naya Beat Vol. 2: South Asian Dance & Electronic Music 1988-1994 Vinyl LP

Our good friends at Naya Beat continue to do the lord’s work of unearthing lost gems from the South Asian diaspora. On their second compilation, Turbotito and Ragz look beyond the glamour of the disco and into the basements of underground clubs. Following critically acclaimed releases with the likes of disco-jazz legend Asha Puthli and Manchester’s Mr.Scruff, Naya Beat Volume 2 spotlights a unique era in the late 80s and early 90s when fertile cross-cultural collaboration abounded in diasporic communities in cities like London and New York and when South Asian music was infused with acid house, New Beat, and dub.

The compilation includes highly influential South Asian electronic acts such as the West India Company, which featured the legendary Bollywood playback singer Asha Bhosle, composer Bappi Lahiri, who spent three weeks recording his album Snakedance at The Beatles’ former private studio at Abbey Road, Sharlene Boodram, Trinidad & Tobago’s proclaimed Princess of Soca, female Sangeeta, a pioneer in the largely male-dominated bhangra industry who set sales records in the UK with her Hindi-bhangra album Flower In The Wind, Fantasy Niteclub, named after a club in the Indo-Caribbean neighbourhood of Queens, New York, and many others.

From Naya Beat: “Often ‘too Asian for mainstream success in the West, and too Western for success in Asia,’ the pioneering music from this time was frequently released to short-lived success or relative obscurity. But now, these unsung heroes get their deserving moment in the spotlight. As dance music now comes full circle with daytime Asian raves back in vogue and South Asian DJs a part of the mainstream and underground circuits, there has never been a better time to pay tribute to the pioneers and with such an authoritative compilation.”