Desi dubstep

Nucleya’s Akkad Bakkad was probably my first desi dubstep experience all those years ago. Since then, Nucleya has had quite an illustrious career working with a lot of famous names as well as indie musicians.

Bass Rani is quite fun with really beautiful female vocals. [Heer] also has some pretty nice vocals - it’s a poem based off of one of the romances of Punjab. If you want a real tear-jerker for ~10 minutes listen to this non-electro rendition of another of the tragic romances of Punjab.

Nucleya collaborated with a Tamil mainstream artist Benny Dayal to make a better version of Let’s Nacho. He collaborated with a Tamil folk artist, Chinna Ponnu whose Sendhura Pottuvatchu is yet another song I’ve put 100+ listens into. She’s something of an icon in Tamil music land, among other contemporary acts like Anthony Dassan.

Ritviz dabbles in some electronic sounds, but it’s a bit of a stretch to call his stuff dubstep. Still has plenty of enjoyable tracks, including this one very cute video with some uncles dancing.

SomeWhatSuper is a Pakistani duo who tear it up with pretty much everything they release. Bandook fucking slaps. Sher-e-Balochistan also slaps hard.

Bollywood has taken the step towards much more wub wub - remixing the classic Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast. The ‘original’ is iconic for both Akshay Kumar’s hypnotic gyration and the fact that it was a shameless copy of the Nusrat classic about a Sufi saint. Nowadays a lot of songs feature some electronic drop and honestly I’m too old to figure out if that means it is dubstep or deep house or dark wave or whatever.

Overall, I have a soft spot for gentle vocals + dubstep. Something about the pacing of SomeWhatSuper’s Uth Shah is just pregnant with this kind of contrast and tension. It’s produced really well and I’ve listened to it 100+ times, easily. I eagerly await for the next thali of desi dubstep for me to gorge myself on.