Sunday, September 16, 2007

Spin the Roti and Rap Raga Polsky

It being a beautiful Sunday morning in Texas, skin recovering from the solar assault of yesterday's attendance at the ongoing outdoor music festival, what better to do than stay inside and watch a little Polish television.

I have Dish Network, which allows me to subscribe to French and Japanese channels instead of HBO and Cinemax. They frequently give free previews of other international channels. This morning, I was lured in by a cooking show on Polsat. Tell me this dude would not kick Emeril's ass all the way back to Gretna.



When credits roll on the cooking show, as is often the case on these Euro channels, they run a couple of music videos as filler between longer programming. Our senses perk up when a Panjabi MC-style boombox Bollywood beat runs with these turbaned dudes chasing some henna-ed hotties.



Then the MC and his sidekick start rapping to the beat in Polish, intercutting their Lazy Sunday shtick with the cast's vintage Bollywood homages.



And then they scratch the motherfucking roti.



Masala Sound System featuring Cinq G, performing "Od Tarnobrzegu po Bangladesz."

Turns out there is a whole sub-genre of Polish language hip-hop with a raga-beat, Polski Ragga-Bhangra. Is this reality, or a Beyond the Beyond blog post?

Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, here it is for your viewing enjoyment.



There's also a killer clip of Masala rapping their "Rewolucja w Nas" at Festiwal Gwiazd 2007. This dude can flubber his throat-singing lips like a Brooklyn Tuvan. And if you look closely at the long shot, you can see a rare image of their promoter, Leggy Starlitz, smiling at his latest creation.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actualy this guy with enormous mustache is Austrian who moved to Warsaw some years ago and was a chef in some of the best Warsaw restaurants - his name is Kurt Sheller.

And Masala Sound System is real :-)

Globalization?

Christopher Brown said...

Herr Sheller ist toll. Thanks!

Unknown said...

More is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbSz6pAf68A

Unknown said...

donnerwetter, herr Sheller is actually swiss. he's a great cook, but the show is terrible, cause he and his sidekick always invite some celebrity, usually of the dumbest sort. good food and bad small talk don't go that well together.

Christopher Brown said...

I will wait patiently for Der Shellermeister to have the Masala Sound System guys on for some bigos vindaloo.

Anonymous said...

First title is "Od Tarnobrzegu po Bangladesz" and Bangladesz is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh in polish.

I'm also recommend Masala in my blog http://ra-v.polter.pl/,blog.html?3709

Greetz from Poland
Ra-V