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Aparna Banerji
It is difficult - for those who saw him rendering out the authentic, traditional, wiser-for-his years recital in Raga Kirwani in Jalandhar recently – to imagine that the same guy made a flash mob sway to his violin in New York City and rendered a cover for the Beautiful Mind in the Bay Area at a 9/11 event.
Nicknamed ‘Violinder’ by his friends – some of his YouTube outings have millions of views - the 26-year-old Raaginder Singh Momi is one among the burgeoning community of hip Indians in the West, epitomising the coming together of the classical and contemporary music forms.
While his Hindustani classical violin tones borrow heavily from the sarangi, his Western covers and collaborations let off hip-hop vibes.
Born in Thailand to a family of Sikh immigrant parents (both classical music teachers) with their foundations rooted in Gurmat and Indian classical music forms, his family emigrated to the US when he was just eight –a month before 9/11. Left to grapple with the backlash against Sikhs and the Xenophobia following 9/11 both from bullies at school and his primarily Afro-Latino neighbourhood; music became a means for Raaginder to make himself belong.
While his love for hip hop was born out of this turmoil, getting trained in Hindustani classical violin by Maihar-Senia gharana violinist Sisirkana Dhar Chaudhary, Raaginder also dabbled in the Afro-hip-hop music getting his big break with a Violin cover on Morni which went viral on the You Tube along with a Jind Mahi/Lean On (30 million You Tube views) mash-up, which he worked on with other chirpy Indie-scene contemporaries like Vidya Vox, Ricky Jatt and Raashi Kulkarni.
What was it like moving to the US?
I was brought up and tutored in shastriya sangeet and in the tabla by my parents and a tabla teacher in Thailand. In 2001 my parents decided to move to the US which was a huge cultural shock for me. I moved at a time when 9/11 happened exactly a month later. It was horrible for me being the new kid at school where you have an un-American accent, and you’re coping with bullying. After 9/11 people started looking at you as if you are the enemy. There were lots of growing up pains, but music was pretty much the foundation that cut off the bad influences.
How did music help you cope?
The first music I really connected to in US was hip-hop - it is a music rooted in struggle. The origins of hip-hop came through speaking the truth about what struggles we are facing. I related to it and it helped me understand the environment it came from. Among instruments, I had veered towards the trumpet initially, because it was bold and boyish but eventually I began liking the violin and picked it up quite easily. Following a year in Western disciplines, my parents arranged classes for me with my Guru Sisirkana Dhar Choudhary. Through her I had a real peek into the guru shishya parampara.
How did you start playing contemporary music?
Throughout my training years in violin, people were like you play good but we don’t really like this music, can you play something we can really listen to? In high school I downloaded a software and started putting violin to various music tracks. Once I put my violin on to a Punjabi MC song (Morni). And the next day it’d been shared over a thousand times. After Morni – I started my you tube channel and with the JindMahi/Lean On mashup really my career catapulted to the next level. I’ve worked with Desi Roots music, Prabh Gill, Punjabi MC, Sidhu Moosewala among others.
Is Gurmat Sangeet also witnessing a revival?
Definitely. With the revival of the tantri saaz (stringed instruments) in 2006 (Darbar Sahib started requiring every raagi to render kirtan to the accompaniment of tantri saaz like in the times of the gurus). Simultaneously, here too people started doing the same. A lot of my father’s students are also learning stringed instruments.