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All Music Guide:
The New Delhi-born Bally Sagoo grew up in Britain where he established a reputation as one of the more happening purveyors of dance music. His music incorporates all manner of bhangra, hip-hop and ragga. His old Indian film-music background has also influenced his art, made tangible around the time of 1995's Bollywood Flashback but also in an underlying sense since film music has created a series of conventions for presenting itself. The kitchen-sink approach so beloved of non-Indian commentators was a tradition that Bally Sagoo could take to heart. Bally Sagoo and Devissaro contributed the music to new dance works by Daksha Sheth and Roger Sinha performed by Yuva (a young South Asian dance company) under the collective title of Tongues Untied in September as part of the annual Vivarta Festival in London. In 1994 it was announced that he had signed a major deal with Columbia/Sony. It was evidence of his versatility and their belief in his potential. Rising from the East followed in 1996, and Sountracks: For Your Life was released in 1999.
Wikipedia:
Bally Sagoo (born Baljit Singh Sagoo, 19 May 1964) is a British Asian musician and DJ who was born in Ranjit Nagar, Delhi, India, but grew up in Birmingham, England, in a predominantly black neighbourhood, influenced by disco, rap and Motown music. Bally Sagoo is also known as The Godfather of Bhangra.
In an interview "Re-mixing Identities: "Off" The Turn-Table," Bally said:
"Indian music was Indian music. So I just left that side of things and I moved into the Western side of things and I was getting into English and American music... I was a typical example of someone who didn't know what Asian people were about. I was too much into the Western society business. My friends were mainly black and I didn't have many Asian mates because of, talking fifteen years ago you know, we didn't have funky Asian music... Then all of a sudden things just changed. I just got so much into it and my mates were like 'my god Bally Sagoo's doing Indian music.'"
He gained success as a DJ in the club scene and broke into music by revamping old Bollywood hits and fusing them with hip hop. He is widely credited as one of the original pioneers of Bollywood, Bhangra and various Indian music, and for triggering the explosion of modern Bhangra pop music (although his music was and is more a fusion of Western dance and hip hop with existing Indian music). This is specifically seen in his 1994 album Bollywood Flashback,(The remix of Asha Bhosle's "Chura Liya" from the album is widely considered as an industry benchmark and the gold standard for Bollywood mixes) followed up with Rising From The East in 1996. Bally Sagoo runs a production company named Ishq Records that responsible for many artist. He has been awarded numerous Platinum album sales and awards. He has also toured with Michael Jackson in India.
In 2003 he won an "Outstanding Achievement Award" at the UK Asian Music Awards.
On an international scale, his most famous work features prominently in Gurinder Chadha's film Bend It Like Beckham and It's a Wonderful Afterlife. He worked together with Amitabh Bachchan for a musical rendition of Harivansh Rai Bachchan's poetry and produced Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's ground breaking album Magic Touch.
In 2007, he starred and composed the music in the Punjabi film, Sajna ve Sajna.
