[radio on in background]
[pumping up barber's chair]
[tuning radio past static and squelch]
- Ankur Malhotra: That's me... Ankur Malhotra.
I went to a Catholic school,
and I had just failed one of their mandatory "hair checks."
So I'm at the neighborhood barbershop
getting my hair...
"corrected."
["Hopelessness" by Ashaon Ka Hua Khatma]
As my long hair falls in line...
my mind tends to drift,
absorbing the sounds around me.
[pumping foot petal, clicking razor]
This is one of my first recollections
of the wonders of music.
This is when I started to really tune in.
*
Music was already my life,
and even at a young age, I was a freaky tweaker.
["Proverbial Track" by Duniya]
If you needed a cassette tape spliced
or your tape heads aligned... I was "the guy."
I was also hooked on vinyl
and the music my father was bringing from the States.
This music was always spinning around in my head.
It was the soundtrack to my life.
["Sara Kantigui (Live)" by Madou Sifiki Diabate]
Turn of the last century, I ended up at UW-Madison,
getting an MBA in Entrepreneurship
and working with tech start-ups.
But something was pulling me to music
and to my homeland, India.
That's when my longtime friend Ashutosh and I
decided to start our own record label.
We had always been fans
of the American folk and blues masters.
And then, we started asking ourselves,
"Who are these Indian bluesmen?
Who are these Indian folk stars?"
And then, we couldn't come up with their names.
We decided to call our label Amarrass Records.
"Amar" means eternal and "rass" means "the essence."
The essence of the music that we are trying to capture
would last forever.
India is a country
steeped in musical tradition and musical culture...
and we knew these masters were out there...
So, what if we go find them?
[changing radio station] So, we packed up our car
full of cobbled-together recording equipment
and drove hundreds of miles into the desert of Rajasthan,
going village to village
in search of the musical masters.
["Instrumental Jam #3" by Barmer Boys]
We'd also heard about the seventh-generation musician
Lakha Khan, player of the Sindhi Sarangi,
a 27-string Indian folk fiddle.
So... we went to his home.
[light bulb clicks]
And he played us a song.
["Tulsi Kya Karoon" by Lakha Khan]
This is one of hundreds of his songs.
But they're all in his head.
And at the time, his two sons
hadn't really continued
with the family's legacy of playing the Sarangi.
So when Lakha Khan eventually leaves this world...
do these songs just disappear?
That notion weighed heavy on him,
and you can hear a sadness,
a deep melancholy in his voice.
"What will I leave behind?"
[Lakha Khan singing]
On that same trip to the desert,
we were introduced to a musician named Manga.
And when we heard him sing,
we instantly knew this voice needed to be heard.
But it needed a band, and then, the label decided to form one.
This would be the voice of Barmer Boys.
["Bole to Mitho Lage" by Barmer Boys]
Barmer Boys put forth a unique fusion
of the old and the new,
melding traditional songs of celebration,
the percussive sound of the dholak, khartal, and morchang,
and fusing in contemporary elements
like beatboxing and DJing.
[scratching record]
["Bole to (Awaare Remix)"]
So, here we are today...
in our tiny studio in Delhi,
making hand-cut vinyl records.
India is a country of over 1.3 billion people,
and we are the only ones making vinyl.
Amarrass Records has worked
with over a hundred artists,
and we currently manage seven groups
that are touring all over the world.
I have always been driven by the realization
that these are perhaps some of the last great players
of this ancient music.
So, by preserving these songs and these sounds,
my hope is that new generations
will carry on this music's legacy
and perhaps be inspired to create something new.
*