Asian Dub Foundation performing live in Berlin, November 2008
To the delight of students and seminar leaders alike, Professor Chaturvedi has been sharing politicized songs that bring together musicians and sound profiles from the South Asian and Afro-Caribbean diaspora before each of his Humanities Core lectures. Here is his essential HumCore playlist, along with some videos and additional information about the artists that have been featured.
Steel Pulse, “Handsworth Revolution”
More information on Steel Pulse available here.
Burning Spear, “Marcus Garvey” and “Christopher Columbus”
More information on Burning Spear available here.
Asian Dub Foundation, “Rebel Warrior,” “Fortress Europe,” and “Naxalite”
More information about Asian Dub Foundation available here.
State of Bengal, “Flight IC408”
Riz MC, “Englistan”
For more information about the Asian Underground movement in 1990s British rock, Professor Chaturvedi recommends Vivek Bald’s documentary Mutiny: Asians Storm British Music. You can also stream music like this (along with newer bands) through the BBC Asian Music Network.
Vinayak Chaturvedi is an associate professor of history and faculty lecturer in the Humanities Core Program at UCI this cycle. He is the author of Peasant Pasts: History and Memory in Western India (University of California Press, 2007) along with many articles on South Asian social and intellectual history, including “A Revolutionary’s Biography: The case of V.D. Savarkar” in Postcolonial Studies, “Rethinking Knowledge with Action: V.D. Savarkar, the Bhagavad Gita, and Histories of Warfare” in Modern Intellectual History, and “Vinayak & Me: Hindutva and the Politics of Naming” in Social History.
I would like to say thank you for uploading these here! It would have been rather difficult to find some of these songs on our own.
I find it very interesting that you chose songs from a variety of artists that were about standing up against the oppression of our day or the past. They are of different kinds of oppression, but I would like to see a song that, through its lyrics, directly talks about the colonization of India by the British and how that affects daily life. I understand how the songs directly relate to the theme of the day and the unit, but listening to a song about slavery while talking about Mahatma Gandhi feels a little odd to me. Also, would it be possible to have a song sung by a female artist?
Priyanka, Have you ever listened to MIA? She is an English-Tamil musician and activist whose recent albums are all about migration and the aftermath of colonialism in South Asia. http://miauk.com