Sanjoy Deb’s homecoming
Bangladesh-born Sanjoy Deb has been enthralling audiences worldwide with his EDM for some time now. Last night, his home crowd got to experience his music for the first time
According to a certain Los Angeles-based music producer and DJ, this is the right time for people to be open-minded towards accepting electronic music fused with Bangla music in a very, very global way.
"And mark my words, I think in the next two years, more than Hindi or Punjabi music, Bangla music will make waves internationally with the sound that we're trying to create."
These bold statements are from Sanjoy Deb, who last night performed for the first time in Bangladesh — the country he was born in and where he had his first taste of music.
The statements may sound a bit too out there; it may sound like it's coming from someone who walks around as if he owns the place. Well, Sanjoy has 'owned' stages he's performed on around the world with his music. Last night, he truly owned Aloki as the headliner of 'Dameer X Fuad Present: Sanjoy' during a 40-odd minutes long set filled with EDM music, mixed with a splash of Bangla folk and pop.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
More on that later, but for now, let's try deciphering who Sanjoy Deb is and why The Business Standard once received a text from Fuad Almuqtadir, arguably the best music producer to hail from Bangladesh, implying it would be worth our while to check the thirty-year-old musician out.
If you ever speak to Sanjoy, you will get the vibe you are talking to an average Dhanmondi teenager who roams around with a pair of black shades and spiked hair, with nothing but music on his mind and an eagerness to create beats and melodies with whatever sound he finds inspiring.
"I once recorded the sound of a fly buzzing around; I used it as a sample on one of my tracks. Being in Dhaka, the honking horns of the buses intrigue me and I would like to record the sounds and use them some day," said Sanjoy.
Sanjoy did not speak a word of English when his family migrated to the United States. He could not understand the words being sung on the tracks, but the beats, rhythm and melodies of Western music felt invigorating to him.
Coming from a musically oriented family, Sanjoy learnt about beats and rhythm when he was being trained in Indian classical music at the age of four. Thus, it was quite natural for him to mash both his Eastern and Western influences together and express himself musically through this fusion.
"As a music producer, I think I specialise in learning and observing different styles and then fusing them with my identity and the sounds that shaped my childhood. It's a mashup of things that I love — as an ode to their music and then applying electronic music to them," stated Sanjoy.
Uploading his samples and original creations on YouTube and Soundcloud led Sanjoy to garner praise from the likes of Indian score composer duo Salim-Sulaiman. With a bit of luck and street smarts, the tons of cold calls and emails that Sanjoy and his friend made to various studios and producers finally came to fruition.
Sanjoy ended up collaborating with popular Indian singer Sunidhi Chauhan, when he was just still a teenager on a song titled 'Ab Laut Aa'.
"That was my first ever Hindi record and I hustled my way to get it and that hustle never stopped," revealed Sanjoy.
Truly, the hustle never stopped. Fast forward 10 years, Sanjoy, today has graced stages in multiple continents. He has played in small auditoriums in front of just a couple hundred people, just like last night in Aloki, in clubs with 1,500 people dancing to his mashups and in venues with more than ten thousand in audience.
Just before landing in Bangladesh, Sanjoy performed in Amsterdam, after which he had a short pit stop in Pune. When he's touring, he's performing alongside some very big names in Indian music. On his recent tours, he shared the stage with Indian rapper Honey Singh.
"I once played a house mix of Shada Shada Kala Kala in an Amsterdam club filled with white people and they went absolutely bananas! Because it sounds like a tribal song and the energy of the melody and the vocals are fun for everyone," said Sanjoy, implying that Bangla music presented through EDM can be a global phenomenon.
His desire to play in Bangladesh, ironically an uncharted territory for him because no one here knows him, stemmed from his experience performing in front of Bangladeshi audiences during the Bangla New Era tour in the United States. For Sanjoy, that was the most charged-up crowd he had ever performed for.
"I was super nervous before that first show in LA. I was mixing these nostalgic Bangla songs with house music and afro beats, But the response I got was crazier than any show I had ever performed in. Every show I have played since I have missed that energy," said an excited Sanjoy.
It's one thing hearing all of these from Sanjoy himself, and it's a whole other experience when it comes to witnessing him perform live. When Sanjoy got up on the stage, the crowd at Aloki didn't know what to expect. Being at the venue, it has to be said that Sanjoy's biggest win of the night must have been that when he got up, he barely had a hundred people to perform for. By the time he was done, half of the entire venue had been refilled because the audience who were loitering outside and contemplating leaving the venue after Fuad had completed his set. They could not help but be lured back into the auditorium because Sanjoy's music resonated with them that much.
Sanjoy's setlist was off the charts and he made everybody dance into the night as if there were no tomorrow. The set list was very diverse as it had a combination of everything that the average Bangladeshi might fancy listening to.
From Fuad's Bapuram Shapure to Farooq Bhai's '1990' to AR Rahman's 'Chaiyya Chaiyya' to fusing an excerpt of Michael Jackson's 'Wanna be Startin Somethin' with Coke Studio Pakistan's 'Pasoori', the set was very diverse.
Sanjoy expressed his devotion and respect to Habib Wahid, one of the pioneers of Bangladeshi fusion music. He did that by fusing Habib's 'Krishno' with Selena Gomez's 'Calm Down' and everybody lost their minds.
Sanjoy ended the night with his own rendition of Fuad's 'Nitol Paaye', possibly as a thank you note because Fuad was the one who convinced Sanjoy to perform in Bangladesh. After that, The Business Standard caught up with him again, but briefly.
"The energy tonight was incredible. It finally felt like I am home. These are the songs I grew up with and I mixed them with the songs I generally play live. I see a diverse range of people connect to them worldwide, and I wanted to connect my roots with that music. That's what the vibe was all about and I think the people reacted to it very well. I'm all charged up to play at the after-party right now; it finally feels like homecoming, man!"
