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Panjabi Mc
Beware CD (2003)
Labh Janjua discography
 $14.99  
This groundbreaking album seamlessly fuses traditional Indian rhythms and instrumentation with the beats and aesthetic of classic Hip-Hop and R&B to form and entirely new sound. Introduction by: Soni Atwal. The album features Jay-Z. On those songs and others, it's the familiar rhymes and rhythms that are made to fit into an alien framework of wails and chants, instead of the other way around. Which means that the less overt mash-ups, like "Yaaran Kollon Sikh Kuriye" and "Jogi," carry a foreign intrigue even greater than Beware's huge hit. Personnel: Panjabi MC (vocals); Hema Sharma, Gurdas Mann, Surinda Shinda, Emelzer Cazley, Soni Atwal, Jay-Z, Labh Janjua (vocals); Andre Dembkowski (guitar); K.S. Bharma (strings); Sunil Kalyan, Sukshinder Shinda (tabla); RSR (percussion). And on the surface, the debut from Coventry, England's Rajinder Rai, aka Panjabi MC, seems to offer that same imbalance, thanks in large part to its Jay-Z cameo on the massive club single "Beware of the Boys." But once you get past the Western window-dressing (and Jay-Z's presence, despite the undeniable electricity and commercial clout it adds, isn't much more than that -- his verses, which ricochet from sexed-up snake-charming stereotypes to weak antiwar whine, certainly aren't among his most memorable), you discover that it's the droning groove of bhangra, not the block-rockin' beats, supplying this project its juice. Hip-hop's Alexander the Great-style impact on music from around the world is well-documented; its inexorable beats have plowed a path through sounds of every culture. Sequence. 2003.
Personnel includes: Panjabi MC (rap vocals, vocals); Jay-Z (rap vocals); Labh Janjua, Surinda Shinda F, Emelzer Cazley, Gurdas Mann, Soni Atwal, Ranjit Mani, Raj Asia (vocals); Shukshinder Shinda (tabla, dohl). Unknown Contributor Roles: Manisha Godbole; Sukshinder Shinda; Balwinder Safri. Photographer: Mike Eller.
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