Bally Sagoo

Biography

Bally Sagoo (born Baljit Singh Sagoo) is a British Asian musician and DJ who was born in Ranjit Nagar, Delhi, India but grew up in Birmingham, England, in a predominantly Black neighborhood, influenced by disco, rap and Motown music. He gained success as a DJ in the club scene and broke into music by revamping old Bollywood hits and fusing them with hip hop. He is widely credited as one of the original pioneers of what is now modern Indian music, and for triggering the explosion of modern Bhangr...

Bally Sagoo (born Baljit Singh Sagoo) is a British Asian musician and DJ who was born in Ranjit Nagar, Delhi, India but grew up in Birmingham, England, in a predominantly Black neighborhood, influenced by disco, rap and Motown music. He gained success as a DJ in the club scene and broke into music by revamping old Bollywood hits and fusing them with hip hop. He is widely credited as one of the original pioneers of what is now modern Indian music, and for triggering the explosion of modern Bhangra pop music (although his music was and is more a fusion of Western dance and hip hop with existing Indian music). This is specifically seen in his 1994 album Bollywood Flashback, followed up with Rising From The East in 1996. Bally runs a production company named Ishq Records that manages several artistes like Bohemia and Gunjan.He has worked twice with the Pakistani pop singer Hadiqa Kiyani.

On an international scale, his most famous work features prominently in Gurinder Chadha's film Bend It Like Beckham. He worked together with Amitabh Bachchan for a musical rendition of Harivansh Rai Bachchan's poetry and produced Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's album Magic Touch.

Bally Sagoo has acquired many designations, to mention a few, “Godfather of Bhangra”; “The mix-master”; “One of UK’s top 10 Asian Success Stories”. It’s taken a lot for Sagoo to acquire these titles and his story starts back in the 1980’s when he felt there was no funky Indian music. Living in the ghetto areas of Birmingham UK, he soon got a taste for black music. Motown, reggae and soul were the type of music he wanted to hear. Sagoo began a personal crusade to fill the void. He knew if he succeeded he would make his mark in history…. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.