Folk Bands and Artists
Ska Vengers
The Ska Vengers is a new Delhi based band who blend ‘ska’ rhythms with elements of dub, punk, jazz and rap to come up with a form of music that is refreshingly different, energetic and highly danceable.
The Ska Vengers play very much for the moment as carefully worked out structures are at times elongated and receive dub treatment and Delhi Sultanate’s unique and highly rhythmic patois provides a suitable foil to Samara’s full throttle vocal delivery. It is the band’s highly dance oriented originals which are gaining plaudits from critics and feet moving with fans.
Following the release of their first song ‘Rude Boy Skank’ on the Stupid Ditties IV compilation album in October 2010, the band created huge waves with a handful of gigs at Ska! Ska! Ska! evenings at Q’BA with their now expanded line up featuring Rie Ona (sax) and Yohei Sato (trombone). One of their first gigs was a storming set in Delhi with ‘banghramuffin’ legend Apache Indian and soon after, brought the house down during the ‘Justice on Trial’ event at Alliance Francaise. The band have a number of notable musicians and writers among its fan base and received a request from author and social activist Arundhati Roy to perform at the launch of her latest book in May 2011, the band collaborated with Roy and performed a specially written piece accompanying a monologue she had put together for the occasion.
In April 2012 the band staged the largest rock concert to be held in an Indian prison, performing for 2000 prisoners at Asia’s largest jail, Tihar. The group managed to donate $5000 worth of musical and sound equipment to the music wards of the jail. The event was picked up by international media and covered extensively in The New York Times, BBC World Service, China Post, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Arab News and many others.
They made the news again with a song and video they released to coincide with the Indian General election ‘Modi, a Message to You’. The video achieved 40,000 views in less than one month and has been featured on international TV channels, most English language national daily newspapers and international news agency, Reuters.
In 2015 the band are currently nominated as best band for their most recent video ‘Frank Brazil’ at VH1 Europe Music Awards in the international artist category.
After extensive touring in 2016, the band is preparing to hit UK again in 2017, with confirmed slots at Boomtown Fair, Womad, Camp Bestival, Bestival, Lovebox, Once Upon A Time in the West amongst other to be announced soon.
