On the house

Hot new deejay Anil Chawla from London raps with Naomi Canton. Read on.

British Asian Anil Chawla is the new deejay to emerge from the recently phrased Maidstone Mafia, the Kent hotspot and has established himself to be one of the country's hottest new talents. He deejayed for the first time ever in Mumbai last week.

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Your music is described as global underground UK house music. What’s that?
Global Underground is the record label that I’m heavily involved with at the moment. It’s quite an honour to be releasing with them, they were the first people to really grasp the concept of DJ mixes, putting out legendary selections from Sasha, Digweed and loads more.

What kind of music are you into specifically?
House and techno. But it all depends on what the crowd goes for. You really can’t plan your sets too much, that doesn’t leave much space for flexibility and spontaneity.

Were you ever part of the Asian Underground scene in London?
I’ve only been living in London for around five years, so I wasn’t around when that was all kicking off. To be honest, I very rarely meet Asian DJs in the UK.

Why do you think House music is getting big in India?
People like Nikhil Chinapa, Pearl and the rest of the Submerge crew are actively pushing the scene forward and opening it up to so many new people. Also, with the Internet, new music is much more accessible. It’s really inspiring to see India taking hold of house music with both hands. Something very special is happening right now.

There’s also some great music coming out of India right now, I’m really into the stuff that Jalebee Cartel and Midieval Punditz are doing.

What are you producing right now?
I’m just wrapping up my debut album with Dale Anderson, which is set to drop on Global Underground early next year, so that’s the major project at the moment. It’s pretty exciting. We’ve been able to work on some new sounds slightly leftfield of what we’ve worked on before, and have worked with a couple of vocalists too — Angie Brown and Justin Robertson. I’ve also been working on a couple of remixes for Cevin Fisher and Redanka.

You have shared the decks with Fatboy Slim. Tell me about that.
That was on the final weekend at Turnmills back in March.. The Chemical Brothers and Justin Robertson were also headlining that evening. I was quite devastated to see the club close, but it was quite a fitting send off to the club which has been my home for the last eight years.