Raeshem Nijhon	MC Kabir

Hip hop has gone brown and its sweep within the South Asian American community is pretty wide. ‘Brown Like Dat: South Asians and Hip Hop,’ an award winning 30-minute documentary by Raeshem Nijhon, brings out the extraordinary phenomenon of hip hop’s rising popularity in the South Asian community.

“South Asians in America are stereotypically turbaned cab drivers, motel owners with heavy accents, young, slick doctors, brainy software engineers, traditional matchmaking mothers. So, what does it mean when this ‘model minority,’ seen as politically passive and financially successful, ventures across its social boundaries into hip-hop culture?,” asks Nijhon.

The answer can be found in the early success of artists such as Abstract Vision Humanity, Chee Malabar from Himalayan Project, D’Lo, Jugular, Karmacy and MC Kabir. The last artist, incidentally, is the son of Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen.

The documentary, shot in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and New York, “gives a voice to South Asian MCs, beatboxers, spoken word artists and producers,” according to Nijhon. “Through their music and their lives, these artists speak on everything from racial profiling post 9/11 to identity in second-generation immigrant communities, forcing us to question ‘traditional’ South Asian existence in America in fresh new ways,” she told News India-Times in an interview.

The documentary won awards for ‘Best Music Film’ at Portobello Film festival, ‘Best Foreign Documentary’ at Urban World NYC Film Festival, ‘Special Jury Prize’ at Bogota International Film festival and ‘Honorary Mention’ at Oakland Film festival.

Nijhon was born in Detroit, MI, where she started her career in the arts learning and performing Bharatnatyam (Indian classical dance), choreographing Bollywood jams for family affairs, and directing mini-plays starring her friends. She then moved to New York City where she attended Tisch School of the Arts at New York University as a film major.

Q: Explain the title ‘Brown like Dat.’

RAESHEM NIJHON: The title ‘Brown Like Dat’ is in reference to “Being Brown in a new, fresh way” a new way to represent and define the South Asian community.

Q: How prevalent is hip-hop among young S. Asians in America?

NIJHON: Hip hop amongst South Asian Americans overall I would say is near #1 in popular music. South Asian youth, well, segments of it, enjoy hip hop as listeners. In terms of creators, it is growing. There are a growing number of South Asian Americans getting involved in the process of hip hop, be it through rapping, breakdancing, DJing, or spoken word. Hip hop is such a very big part of youth culture in the United States that it is really only a matter of time before this rapidly growing minority gets its foot in that door.

Q: Since hip-hop essentially embodies social, political and cultural voices, what is that Brown hip-hop artists talk about?

NIJHON: South Asian artists speak on a spectrum of issues. It’s a fallacy to really blanket them as one kind of voice. Each artists speaks on issues relevant to their lives and not all of them take on the responsibility to “represent” the whole community –– no one person can do that. Some do speak about being a minority in the United States, some speak about breaking the mould of the “Model Minority Myth” through their music and lives. None of them desire to be pigeonholed into a group that talks about certain social issues that pertain only to South Asians –– universality is a desired by these artists. They do, however, touch on issues pertinent to the community such as the emasculating of Asian American men in pop culture, the model minority myth, political passiveness as well as building bridges with other communities of color, and others.

Q: What are the recurring themes of their lyrics?

NIJHON: Recurring themes of their lyrics talk about breaking the mold, going beyond the “social boundaries” that are set for South Asians in this country.

Q: Did you during filming get the sense that brown hip-hop has the potential to go mainstream?

NIJHON: I do think some of these artists have the potential to go mainstream. They are very talented and some can contend the pool of Hip hop artists not just in the smallest part of the venn diagram classifying them by ethnicity as well. I think in these questions you are seeing these people as a solid unified movement with similar styles and messages when, in fact, they do not want to be seen as a wave called “South Asian hip hop.” They are South Asian and Hip hop artists, that’s an important distinction in fact.

Q: In the U.K., Bhangra began as an underground, subaltern movement that went on to conquer mainstream charts. Do you see that happening here?

NIJHON: The migration to the U.K. and the history of South Asians in the U.K. is very different than that in the States so it is difficult in fact to compare them as if they were equal. In the U.K. the migration and community it is more politicized in its first waves of migration. Bhangra is a folk music of India that was melded with international style whereas hip hop is of African American roots and South Asians have to develop their ownership –– the ownership is already there with Bhangra. If it does become a wave, it will take a much longer time and will not be as unified as that of Bhangra in the U.K. They are two very different situations when you look beyond the surface.

Q: Do you see brown hip-hop as a clear break from the hackneyed Asian stereotypes?

NIJHON: I do see South Asians in hip hop as a break from the hackneyed stereotypes and that is discussed in the film. They break away from the polarity in the stereotypes –– either the doctor/software engineer or the 7-11 attendant. S. Asians fought an invisible social boundary and these people transcend that as artists and political enthusiasts.