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Abstract:
Bhangra is the music of South Asian youth raised in the West; it draws on the Punjabi
folk genre whose name it shares, on the songs of popular Hindi movies, and on mainstream
Western dance musics such as reggae, hip hop, house, and jungle. At the same time,
Bhangra continues to exist as a folk music in the context of rural, agricultural Punjab, where
songs are performed and danced to by men to the accompaniment of the dholak and/or
dholki drums. In this setting, bhangra is primarily associated with the harvest festival of
Bhaisakhi, and secondarily with weddings, the New Year, and other celebrations.
It appears that many diverse kinds of music are called bhangra, and it is difficult to find
unifying characteristics in them. People within the South Asian community are divided
about what constitutes a bhangra song, and the music itself changes as rapidly as any other
commercial dance genre. Given the significance of bhangra to South Asian youth culture in
the West it seems important to attempt to understand its content as well as its producers
and consumers. It is the aim of this paper to promote a familiarity with bhangra, based on
research carried out in Toronto in the spring of 1995.
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