We have a long heritage in this country of creating some of the greatest music the world has ever heard. In every musical genre, composers and British Asian performers from England have made their mark. From Monsoon and Nijma Acktar, women whom lead the way back in the 80’s, through to Nitin Sawhney, Talvin Singh and Sudha (Faithless) today. In rock, pop and dance music, England has consistently led the way, whether in the 1980s when Apache Indian, Echo Belly, Cornershop and Asian Dub Foundation were at the height of their worldwide success, or today with younger artists such as Zain Malik, Naughty Boy, Nadia Shah, My Panda Shall Fly and Sonna Real get ready to dominate sales worldwide. We have also achieved notable success in jazz with Arun Ghosh and in folk, bhangra and world music on the international stage.

We would not have scaled the heights of artistic greatness in the first place without our pre-eminence in music discussion. An understanding of the dedication and hard work necessary to achieve meaningful success in this subject. We aim to challenge these issues head on by producing key-industry debates including, ‘It Is Time To Stop Calling It Asian Music? (2011) A celebrity panel discussion, which explored new developments in the music industry and ‘Muslim Women in Music Debate!’ Inspired by the news of Kashmir’s first all-female rock group Pragaash, who disbanded following threats from the community, presented on a forty minute live show on the BBC West Midlands (2014.) We feel it is essential we take a closer, more-in-depth look at the music scene and ask fundamental questions that often get ignored.

Do you have a discussion you want to raise, would you like to work with us for social change? Then email music@shaanti.co.uk to get involved!