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'Indian slums could be next major centre of world music'
India's countless slums and ghettoes could make it as the next major centre of the world hip-hop and reggae movement.
India's countless slums and ghettoes could make it as the next major centre of the world hip-hop and reggae movement.
"Look at the biggest music in the world today. What is it? Hip-hop, reggae - this is music that has come from the streets, the slums, the ghettoes," said Aziz ur-Rahman Ibrahim or Aziz, one of Britain's best-known guitarists, now touring India.
"India has just the right boiling pot of angst and daily battle in its slums which can breed popular music - music that talks about everyday life and its struggles and becomes the voice of the common man," said Aziz, who will perform across five Indian cities till November 10, on his first visit to India.
"India really has the potential to develop its own music of existence and survival, which can take the world by storm like hip-hop has."
He was born to parents who migrated from Amritsar to Lahore during partition. Then his father, who worked in the British army, got a job as a telecom operator in Manchester and the family moved to Britain.
"My parents define the mix of best of both worlds. They have the polite customs of the subcontinent and yet the hunger to achieve that defines the West.
They never want their children to undergo the hardships that they have," said the man who loves being in India because "here everyone knows how to pronounce and spell my name".
Music, he said, chose him. "I never planned a career in music, it just happened. Someone heard me play and I was offered the job of guitarist with Simply Red."
"It was fantastic," said Aziz, who toured with Simply Red in the late 1980s.
"A salary of 1,000 pounds a week, five star hotels, fans, very nice. No one could have said no to the offer."
Thus began the journey of Aziz the guitarist. It saw him play with Stone Roses, a job Oasis guitar player Noel Gallagher once described as "the hardest job in the world".
The Stone Roses was one of the greatest bands in the late 1980s and pioneered a revolution in British urban rock-n-roll.
He started his solo career after the end of Stone Roses, with a debut album called Lahore to Longsight, depicting his parents' journey from the subcontinent to Britain.
Now, Aziz is hunting for beauty "in imperfections". His first stop: Aishwarya Rai. He thinks she is too beautiful.
"I like a bit of blemish, the imperfection adds to the character."
