Music
Shava, Shava! The Sound of Finland's Bhangra
NEWS REPORTS
What do you get when you fuse Finland's rap style chanting with Punjabi folk rhythms and Bhangra dancing? Finnish Bhangra (Suomi-bhangra) is the answer that you'll get from singer-songwriter Kiurelu Sammallahti, who heads up the ensemble Shava.
The band's song, "On siisti ajaa Hertzigassa aamubussissa" throws together an entertaining mix of content - birch trees, concrete inner city views and bus rides, and a few words in Punjabi - into a cross-cultural stew strongly flavoured by the catchy bhangra rhythms from Punjab.
But the song is about much more than its simplistic lyrics suggest. Band members agree that it also tells the story of the ability of love to overcome boundaries - pretty much in the same way that the morning bus acts as the lifeblood of the Helsinki suburb of Herttoniemi.
The band members say they're completely at home with the cultural cocktail.
"The Finnish film industry and [the Punjabi scene] aren't really that far apart," Sannallahti declared during a visit to YLE's Aamu-TV morning programme.
As far as he's concerned, the music coming from the two worlds share the same basic ingredients: the emotionality and melancholy of Punjabi hit music is similar to home-grown pop songs. While Sammallathi studied folk music at the Sibelius Academy, he has close ties to the sub-continent.
"I've spent over one year in India altogether, like many members of the band. You can't learn some things from books, you have to absorb them directly on the spot," he explained.
　
October 28, 2009
Conversation about this article
1: Amrik (U.K.), October 29, 2009, 6:42 PM.
Interesting.
2: Jaishin (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), December 28, 2009, 5:47 PM.
Cool :)
3: Jaskaran Singh (New Delhi, India), January 03, 2010, 12:48 PM.
Wow!! That's pretty awesome. I need to tell this to my cousins and uncles putting up in Finland :D