<B>What's Shakin'? Bhangra. Big Time.</B><P>Take Traditional Punjabi Music, Add Drum Machines -- and Hip-Hop to It. <P>By Alona Wartofsky in The Washington Post <P>Bangra is quite big here in the UK I believe.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>NEW YORK -- A while back, Jerard Duncan was filling his car at a Brooklyn gas station when he heard what sounded like a strange kind of hip-hop. The percussion was unfamiliar, and the rapping was not in English. He asked the Indian kids in the next car what this music was, and they told him: bhangra.<P>So last week, the 28-year-old investment banker went to S.O.B.'s, a Manhattan nightclub that hosts regular "Basement Bhangra" nights. There, to his surprise, were hundreds of young South Asians -- people from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka -- throwing down. "This is bhangra music," he said as he gestured in the direction of the nearest undulating bodies. "I don't know anything about it. I guess you could say it's like Indian hip-hop."<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><BR><A HREF="http://washingtonpost.com:80/ac2/wp-dyn/A14732-2001May11?language=printer" TARGET=_blank><B>More...</B></A>