The Best South Asian Albums of 2025–and the Artists Defining a New Era
For much of the past two decades, South Asian music (and the culture, overall) has been framed in Western spaces as an influence rather than an ecosystem worthy of appreciation—something to borrow from, aestheticise, or reduce to a ‘moment’. In 2025, that framing no longer held weight. Across the wider diaspora, artists are releasing work…
Southall, Community and the Daydreamers Festival + Interview with Manu Nandha
Growing up in the uber-populated Indian area of Belgrave, Leicester, was a blessing. From a very young age, I was instilled with an understanding of the importance of my Gujarati heritage. I was surrounded by various cultural markers, including festivals and neighbourhood gatherings, adapting mannerisms and sensibilities that I could only attribute to this community.…
DAYTIMERS Presents: Alterations Part I: Album Review
From the outset, I knew the DAYTIMERS were different. Before the collective existed, South Asian presence in the UK’s club scene felt scattered and under-recognised. A handful of DJs and artists made joyful noise but authentic visibility was rare, often limited to token bookings or the occasional nostalgic “desi night.” Brown ravers either clocked each…
Vivek Vadoliya’s “& When The Seeds Fell” Exhibition: Review
A short while ago, I found myself stepping out of Dalston Kingsland Station, wondering aimlessly, when a photograph in the window of the 1014 Gallery stopped me in my tracks. An elderly Gujarati woman stood in an open meadow, her milky hair framing a face lined with wisdom, hands drawn close to her chest. She…
Yung Singh and EKTA—For The Culture
It’s 11:00 p.m. on a cool spring Friday night. A diverse crowd converges outside the Electric Brixton to attend a night of Yung Singh’s EKTA—his future record label and current brand of club events that are way more than just a ‘Punjabi night out’. A half hour goes by, and the crowd becomes antsy, wondering…
Steel Banglez – ‘One Day It Will All Make Sense’ Review
Steel Banglez has done it all—he went from DJing and broadcasting on pirate radio to producing for the likes of D Double E, Wiley and Krept and Konan, to name a few, contributed one of the biggest hits of the Afroswing era with Fashion Week and collaborated with over 40 artists, including Giggs and Chip,…
Raf-Saperra – ‘She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not’ Review
Over the past five years, we’ve seen Raf-Saperra’s ascent to fame in the Punjabi music scene as he waved the flag for the UK as the voice of his generation. He went from posting covers of his favourite songs to the few hundred followers he had on his Instagram account, to dropping one of the…
JYOTY—The People’s DJ
She’s an icon, she’s a legend and she will forever be the moment—Jyoty Singh solidifies herself as, inarguably, one of the most important DJs of this generation, with her latest headlining world tour, ‘We’ve Been Here Before’ I first stumbled upon Jyoty’s name in August 2019, when she took the stage for her unforgettable debut…
Specialist ‘N’ Tru Skool’s ‘Word Is Born’ 20th Anniversary – Intimate Listening & Discussion Session Recap
I couldn’t tell you when the first time I heard Hip-Hop/Rap or R&B/Soul music was, these sounds were engrained within my psyche since I could take my first steps; it was on the kitchen hi-fi system when my Dad cooked, it was in my cousin’s car on our way to visit our grandparents on Sunday…
Mass Appeal Presents Talha Anjum: ‘My Terrible Mind’ Film Premiere + Performance Recap & Review
Hanumankind & Kalmi’s Big Dawgs blew up in a mostly unexpected way this summer; outside of it being a very well-produced song, it topped global Hip-Hop charts (dethroning Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us for a hot second), became a massive hit across US radio and put a huge spotlight on Indian Hip-Hop, forcing music executives…
Mass Appeal Presents Raf-Saperra: ‘Tale of a Snake Charmer’ Film Premiere Recap & Review
Picture a typical London autumn evening: a midnight sky at 4 pm, borderline torrential rain and traffic that stretches as far as the eye can see. Amid all this, I find myself running from Dalston Kingsland Station to the Rio Cinema—a long-standing, independent art deco cinema in the middle of East London. A crowd of…
Barbican Centre’s ‘The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998’ Review
Growing up a second-generation British South Asian, there are only so many pieces of Indian history that are inherently rooted within you over time: a vague understanding of the Mughal Empire, stories of colonialism and the British Raj, Mahatma Gandhi and his fight for Independence, Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the subsequent 1984 anti-Sikh riots and…
Jawani 4eva Birmingham Review: A Panjabi dress code, through and through
It’s Friday afternoon and we’re t-minus nine hours from the event. I walk down the stairs to my front door, checking to make sure I have my keys in my pocket and my mum asks where I’m going. I reply nonchalantly, “To buy a kurta”. I hear the rustle of her rushing out of bed…
Dialled In 2024 Review: A festival that’s so much more than just great music
Growing up in Leicester, I’ve always known how special it is to be brown. To be surrounded by a community that looks like you and talks like you in this very English backdrop, the people of South Asian descent in this city do an amazing job of reminding you of a home away from home—that…
JAY DAHYA 