Hip-hop by way of India

Lounging in a Swiss nightclub late last year, rapper Jay-Z heard something that intrigued him: a track called “Mundian To Bach Ke.” It fused traditional Indian drumming with theme music from the ‘80s TV series “Knight Rider,” and its chaste lyrics -- in which a father warns his daughter to “be careful of the boys” -- were sung in Punjabi, the language of northern India and Pakistan. Hardly, in other words, music to please a pop crowd, right?

Wrong. The song had topped European charts, and Jay-Z watched as it electrified club dance floors. Then he promptly did what any shrewd artist with an ear for beats and an eye for trends would: He had his people call their people.

“Their people” turned out to be 27-year-old Rajinder Rai, a.k.a. Panjabi MC, who has been producing U.K. Bhangra -- a melange of Indian, hip-hop and dance music -- for nearly a decade. Having recorded “Mundian To Bach Ke” five years ago, Panjabi MC was more than pleased to have one of his favorite hip-hop artists rap over it.

The result, Jay-Z and Panjabi MC’s “Beware of the Boys,” has meant a new sound imported to U.S. pop airwaves. The recording has also delivered that coveted commodity -- a crossover single -- to an underground artist from Coventry, England.

“I wasn’t aware that anyone like Jay-Z had ever heard our music before, let alone would want to use it,” Panjabi MC said by phone from Germany, where he was wrapping up the European leg of a whirlwind tour that brings him to the U.S. this month. In July, he’ll release his first full U.S. CD: a best-of collection, “Beware,” on the indie hip-hop label Sequence Records.

Meanwhile, he’s adjusting to the role that crossover success tends to make artists play -- that of poster child for an entire musical genre. Ever the composed Brit, he admits only that “it’s been quite hectic.” His “Beware of the Boys” is the ultimate postmodern pastiche -- an Americanized version of contemporary Bhangra music, which is itself an Anglicized version of traditional Indian folk music.

Born of a culture clash

Born in England during the early ‘80s, modern Bhangra was invented by a flowering community of first-generation Anglo Indians who, like Panjabi MC, listened to hip-hop, dance and pop -- but also to their parents’ Indian, or desi, music.

“I remember two cultures clashing in the house as I was growing up: British and Punjabi. I was left looking for ways to combine them,” explains Panjabi MC. He started out in the hip-hop circuit, earning his moniker from MCs who had never seen an Indian rapper before, then he gravitated toward Bhangra -- which, unlike mainstream Bollywood music, is recorded in Punjabi, not Hindi. This gave it underdog status even in Indian music circles, and still makes it, says Panjabi MC, “the reggae of India.”

Punjabi music, he explains, “generally doesn’t have the liberty of being blunt about its subject matter.” American music, of course, does. On “Beware of the Boys,” Jay-Z protests the war with Iraq, deems himself “the black Brad Pitt” and employs a snake as a body-part metaphor that ought to make young girls blush.

Longtime Bhangra promoter Sanjay Sabarwal, who owns two L.A.-area Indian music stores, says “Beware of the Boys” has already spawned an increase in sales of Panjabi MC’s most recent album, “Legalized.” “Hearing it on hip-hop stations, people thought it was just one track,” he says, adding that the American Bhangra scene is generally limited to New York, L.A., San Francisco and Chicago. “Now they’re curious about the music as a whole.”

That curiosity was fueled by hip-hop producers DJ Quik and Timbaland, who recently tapped Indian music for such tracks as singer Truth Hurts’ “Addictive” and Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On.” Panjabi MC hopes “Beware of the Boys” will make Bhangra more than just another hip-hop side dish. “I’m pretty convinced,” he says, “that this music is more than what you’d call, well, a flavor of the month.”