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'I'll be going through a slum to a rich club': India's upside-down rave scene | Musique Non Stop

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Friday, January 5, 2018

'I'll be going through a slum to a rich club': India's upside-down rave scene

Magnetic Fields, a three-day festival in the Rajasthan desert, saw the country’s burgeoning dance scene go overground. But there are concerns that clubbing is a corporatised ‘rich person’s game’

‘Before this, there was Bollywood, and everything else was deep underground.” These are the words of producer Karsh Kale, describing India’s music scene as recently as 10 years ago. It is telling of just how much has changed that Kale is saying this by a fireplace in the middle of a desert in Rajasthan, where an electronic music festival is taking place.

Now in its fifth year, with a capacity of more than 3,000 (having started at less than 500), Magnetic Fields is one of many events catering to a burgeoning underground music scene in India. Sets from Four Tet and Ben UFO that go on until 8am in the grounds of a magical 17th-century palace are remarkable in themselves (as are surreal moments such as a local hip-hop DJ dropping Big Shaq’s Man’s Not Hot under the stars), but what is especially noteworthy is the number of Indian acts and attendees.

Related: The Ska Vengers: 'The worst that could happen? We could get lynched'

The ability to build a cultural community through music is severely hindered by the fact these events are corporatised

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by Tara Joshi via Electronic music | The Guardian

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