Asian Dub Foundation biography
In September 2006, the dub/punk opera "Gaddafi: A Living Myth", with music by Asian Dub Foundation, opened at the London Coliseum. In Spring 2007 Asian Dub Foundation announced the release of a best of compilation Timefreeze 1995-2007 which includes a bonus disc of rare remixes and live tracks, featuring Chuck D, the lead rapper of American hip hop group, Public Enemy. The album also features a new track recorded with former vocalist Deeder Zaman. In May 2007 Asian Dub Foundation performed a radio session and interview on the Bobby and Nihal show on BBC Radio 1 where they performed three new tracks: "Climb On", "Superpower" and "S.O.C.A.". In June 2007 they were the only Western act to perform at the Festival of Gnawa music in Essaouira, Morocco playing to a crowd of 60,000 people and collaborating with traditional Gnawa musicians.
Between 2004 and 2007 when Aktarv8r was not a member of the group he played live on stage with the London band Oojami who perform Middle Eastern belly dance bellydance music. On the album "Boom Shinga Ling" released late in 2006, Aktarv8r plays on a couple of songs and is credited on the album under his own name Aktar Ahmed. In August 2007 Asian Dub Foundation started playing with two new vocalists, Al Rumjen (previously with King Prawn) and Aktarv8r returned after MC Spex was asked to leave the band. In November and December 2007 Asian Dub Foundation recorded a new album, Punkara, that was released in spring 2008.
Music
The 1995 song, Rebel Warrior, was inspired by the 1920s poem, "Bidrohi" by Bengali poet, Kazi Nazrul Islam, an advocate for Indian independence. The song discusses the racial violence and inequality that the group state still plagues their British communities. Asian Dub Foundation have used their music in conjunction with education and social work for youth in the East End of London, as well as other British anti-racism campaigns.
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Like other groups in their genre such as Hustlers HC and Fun-Da-Mental, Asian Dub Foundation fuse South Asian instrumentation and lyrics with the dominantly conceived black music genre of rap. Their music is able to signify a disruption in the racial/ethnic boundaries of hip hop. In their song, "Strong Culture", they assert their authenticity as legitimate Asian hip hop artists, contrary to other popular claims. The line from the song, "I'm not a Black man / This time it's an Asian." likens back to when Asians were considered "Black" by some in the United Kingdom (UK) and often were part of that musical scene as Asian music had not fully emerged yet. Their lyrics call for radical political harmony and they use their music as an organizing tool for cultural politics, endorsing righteousness, social change, and an end to what they perceive as oppression in the UK. They also pursue the issue of the politicization of the category "Asian," asserting the legitimacy and authenticity of having an Asian identity in the hip hop world. They redefine the "Asian" category by reconnecting it with an anti-colonial history, as well a current, existing anti-racist struggle.
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