Tarun Nayar was energetically feeling out whether or not he would make the 20-hour flight from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Mumbai, India, after recovering from a sudden bout with pneumonia last month when he spoke to Tahoe Weekly.
WATCH Delhi 2 Dublin’s video for “TumbiWOW”
“India’s not the easiest place to travel,” says the musician and producer. “But we’ll be in big cities with nice places to stay. I got X-rayed yesterday and the pneumonia is gone, so I’m leaning toward going.”
Delhi 2 Dublin unites contemporary electronic and hip-hop production with a fusion of Bhangra, funk, dub, reggae, pop and Celtic.
Nayar plays tabla, an Indian percussion instrument, and electronics for the Canadian world music group Delhi 2 Dublin. The rest of the band, which features a vocalist, violinist, sitar and dhol (another type of Indian drum) player, were already abroad preparing for their final shows of the tour in Mumbai and New Delhi.
“In cities like Bombay, people go out every night of the week,” says Nayar “These are trendy small clubs where around 400 to 500 young people come to party.”
Formed in Vancouver in 2006, Delhi 2 Dublin unites contemporary electronic and hip-hop production with a fusion of Bhangra, funk, dub, reggae, pop and Celtic. They’ve since performed around the world from Germany to Dubai to Indonesia to Australia and everywhere in between.
“We call ourselves subcontinental pop or pop with Indian sensibilities,” says Nayar. “We’re very much rooted in Punjabi folk music and how it interacts with electronic music. We are influenced by a lot of stuff from modern-day gansta, Punjabi hip-hop to super-classic folk singers of an older generation such as Amar Singh Chamkila. We’ve recently been inspired by a guy called Sidhu Moose Wala. Like a lot of whole world music, we’re really shaped by a gamut of folk sounds.”
For Nayar, Punjabi folk music resonates on multiple levels. Both of his parents are amateur musicians who listened to classical and traditional Punjabi music when he was young.
“It’s in my blood way back there,” he says. “It’s agricultural in its origins and has a very rooted energy that brings people back to the earth. It’s really energetic and it makes people dance. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, this music makes you move. White, brown, black or Asian, you just dance.”
The group’s diverse sound has evolved dramatically since they made their first appearance at Vancouver’s Celtic festival 12 years ago, growing from a fascinating amalgam of Celtic fiddle and Bhangra beats to a truly distinctive representation of original world pop music.
“What has changed over the past few years is our songwriting,” says Nayar. “We started in the jam band world, but we’ve spent so much time writing lately that we’re starting to get pretty good at it. I think the songs and music are better and we are getting better at expressing ourselves and our reality. That reality is tied into being brown people from Canada and all the highs and lows that go with that.”
Nayar is half-Indian. His father immigrated to Canada when he was 21. About 10 percent of greater Vancouver’s population, more than 200,000 people, are from India and a majority trace their roots to the northwestern state of Punjab.
“I was a Canadian Punjabi kid,” says Nayar. “How we came up in that community has deeply influenced what we do. In the beginning, they didn’t understand what we were doing when we were making our mash up of Punjabi and electronic music. We first gained popularity outside of our own culture. We are much more supported by them now than when we first came up.”
According to Nayar, Delhi 2 Dublin shows are often a diverse affair with a “half-brown, half-white audience. Bringing people together is a big part of it, for sure,” he says with joy.
April 6 | 10 p.m. | Free
Crystal Bay Casino | Crystal Bay, Nev.
For more information or for tickets, visit delhi2dublin.com or crystalbaycasino.com.
