Asian underground

Asian Underground is a term associated with various British Asian musicians (mostly Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan) who blend elements of Western underground dance music and the traditional Asian music of their home countries in South Asia. The first well-known mention was the compilation album Anokha - Soundz of the Asian Underground released in 1997 and masterminded by Talvin Singh and Sweety Kapoor. It is not a strict musical genre per se, since the specific sounds can vary wildly (from Cornershop's Bollywood-influenced Britpop to Panjabi MCs' bhangra-influenced jungle). Most of these artists are the children or grandchildren of immigrants and have grown up in Western culture, but still have a strong Asian background through their families.

In the 1980s, the Asian Underground scene gave rise to the bhangra music genre, which would later become more mainstream in the 1990s and 2000s. In the 1990s, Asian Underground was considered hip and broke through to the mainstream, with artists such as Apache Indian and Cornershop frequently entering the UK charts, with the former's "Boom Shack-A-Lak" (1993) appearing in many popular movies and the latter topping the charts with "Brimful of Asha" in 1998. The genre and other forms of South Asian music began to influence Europe's pop mainstream as acts like Björk, Bananarama, Erasure, and Siouxsie and the Banshees all released singles or remixes featuring South Asian instrumentation. Talvin Singh, known for his innovative fusion of Indian classical music with drum and bass, subsequently won a Mercury Music Prize for his album OK in 1999.

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