CiTR

Vancouver artist Ruby Singh phones in to talk about his new pan-cultural Sufi Hip-Hop project Jhalaak which released its debut self-titled album in May. Spanning two continents, Jhalaak brings together the powerful sounds of Qawaali (devotional Sufi music from Pakistan and India), Hip-Hop, and EDM. Jhalaak met under the constellations of the Vancouver summer sky in 2014 when the Indian musicians found a kindred spirit in Canadian born Desi Hip-Hop artist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Ruby Singh.
“We met 6 years ago at the Indian Summer Festival in Vancouver,” explains Singh. “The group of Indian musicians are all brothers from the same family, Salim Khan, Khete Khan, Chugge Khan, 19th generation musicians from a caste called Manganiyars. They are from the same city where my ancestors migrated from 300 years ago so there is a good chance that our ancestors were hanging out which is pretty incredible.”

Made up of an ensemble of artists who have toured the world over, Jhalaak is a potent combination of musicians sparking dance floors worldwide. Chugge Khan, with recent project Junun, toured extensively with Radiohead and was mentored as a young vocalist by the inimitable Ustaad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Ruby Singh’s spoken word, rap and beatboxing have taken him across the globe throughout North America, Europe, and the South Asian continent, which prepared him for creating rap interpretations of Qawwali songs that date back as far as 700 years.

To expand the spectrum of Jhalaak, Juno and Emmy nominated producer and DJ Adham Shaikh, contributes to their hypnotic and explosive chemistry.