Spread power with words: Asian Dub Foundation interview

In the wake of the riots, the Asian Dub Foundation shows us the political power of music. Guitarist Steve Chandra Savale speaks to Lucy Kenningham

“I just want to say something about the events of last night,” guitarist Steve Chandra Savale says, as the until-then raucous, sweaty crowd in Brixton’s Hootenanny tenses in anticipation of an acknowledgement of the racist rioting that had been sullying the country for a week.

This month saw the worst riots the UK has experienced since 2011. Misdirected anger and hatred drove hundreds of people across the country to commit physical and verbal violence, with the reason for their ire, they said, being immigration (after misinformation spread about the suspect of the Southport attack).
Not only were asylum seekers physically threatened through vandalism of hostels they were staying in – one stuck in such a situation sent a text to one volunteer saying he was safely in the basement (of the hostel) and they had water. A week of violence led to over 1,000 number of arrests. The scars will be lasting, as many people felt so threatened they sheltered for safety in their homes. But on that Wednesday evening, a night that some expected to be the culmination of something terrible, instead something wonderful happened: anti-fascists came out in droves to defend the streets against the far right.

But Savale’s is not the message we expected. “What an amazing show against racism: thousands of people out on the streets in protest against the fascists.” We cheer. It wasn’t what I expected him to say. But it fits with his band, the Asian Dub Foundation’s (ADF) attitude to politics.

The sounds are entrancing: a beatboxing flautist (the “Jimi Hendrix” of the flute world), a brilliantly charismatic MC, the hypnotic basslines and bombastic amalgamation of Asian sounds from Bhangra to Bollywood . It feels fitting to recognise that feat as ADF mark 30 years of its immigration-championing music.

The band formed during an educational workshop session in 1993 at Community Music in Bethnal Green – an institution which has become their spiritual home. The next year, then-electronic musician Savale joined –  already an innovator, he gained the moniker Chandrasonic because he used to tune all of the strings on his guitar to one note and play it with a knife. 

“Even though the common thread was the South Asian experience in Britain, all five of the original members were actually from very different musical backgrounds and ages, with different life experiences,” Savale tells me over the phone a week after the triumphant, 30-year anniversary show. “When I joined ADF, I’d actually given up playing guitar Guitar was out of date. But the idea of live bass in a jungle concept, and then putting guitars and flutes and various kinds of a lot of singing in was totally radical.”

For three decades the mishmash, shapeshifting group known as ADF and centred around Asian sounds – from Bhangra to Hyderabadi – has been celebrating immigration and immigrants in a way for which music – and their music – is particularly suited. Songs include Coming Over Here, poking fun at the absurdity and cyclicism of anti-immigrant rhetoric and featuring comedian (and Guardian columnist) Stewart Lee, who shares their strong political agenda. Savale put the track together in just an hour and released it on the day the UK officially left the European Union. .

“Bloody Poles… Bloody Indians,” it goes. “Comin’ over here, Inventin us a national cuisine! And before them in the 5th century it was the Anglo-Saxons weren’t it? BLOODY ANGLO-SAXONS! Comin’ over here From northern continental Europe”. Savale put the track together in just an hour.

“I put Stewart Lee’s iconic satirical attack on anti-immigration politicians over an unused backing track for my own amusement, thinking that it could never come out,” Chandra recalls. “It later went to No.1 in a lot of UK charts… People told me it’s one of the few tracks that you can laugh along with while simultaneously shaking your fist in defiance. 

That track came out in 2021 but ADF has been politically active since the band’s inception, with albums like the “exhausting but exhilarating” (Savale’s words) Rafi’s Revenge of 1998. Their raucous, punk-inspired, political music challenged stereotypes about immigrants and brought their words to a new audience – who converged at thrilling live shows. “I don’t think there’s another album from 1995 where you have jungle breakbeats and live bass and live guitar, plus South Asian kind of influences from our parents which was very diverse as well. Bangladeshi, Bengali, Punjabi, Hydrebadi, Maharati, it was always a very diverse melange of music.”

“In the 1990s, Indian or South Asian political action was associated with Gandhi,” Savale says. “Yes, whatever you think about Gandhi, that has been kind of  packaged and sold, because it’s quite an unthreatening image. But we wanted to kind of reshape people’s images of the South Asian continent.”

The band gained worldwide recognition in the 90s, sharing the stage with Rage Against The Machine, the Beastie Boys, Radiohead and Primal Scream.  But ADF became a genre unto themselves. The unique combination of jungliest rhythms, dub bass lines and wild guitar, overlaid by references to their South Asian roots via militant high-speed rap, has established them as one of the best live bands in the world.Building a solid live reputation in the mid-90’s, the band gained worldwide recognition sharing the stage with Rage Against The Machine, the Beastie Boys, Radiohead and Primal Scream. ADF became a genre unto themselves. Their unique combination of jungliest rhythms, dub bass lines and wild guitar overlaid by references to their South Asian roots via militant high-speed rap has established them as one of the best live bands in the world.

Their unique beginnings shaped both their sound and their educational aspirations, with the collective setting up their own organisation ADF Education, plus instigating campaigns on behalf of those suffering miscarriages of justice.

ADF’s Pandit G was awarded an MBE for services to the music industry in 2002. He declined it, saying: “I personally don’t think it’s appropriate. I’ve never supported the honours system. If you want to acknowledge projects like [Community Music], the work that these organisations do, then fund them. There’s no point in giving an individual an accolade to bring people into the establishment; [it] won’t actually help the organisations! If you want to acknowledge the work of these organisations, prioritise funding.”

Savale still teaches a music history course. “But [Community Music’s] future is in doubt,” he tells me.
British music has long been and will continue to be enhanced by immigration – from ska to the blues. More generally, music has a particular power to transcend geographical borders, and bring people together from across the globe.

Too often, in Britain, “we have this notion that music is ‘just music’. It’s a soundtrack to a brand or a lifestyle. But if you look at the way that music is utilised worldwide, you see a very different picture,” Savale says – one where politics is present.

The riots, though, have spurred some artists to take collective action. Idles, Nadine Shah and Fontaines DC have backed a Love Music Hate Racism open letter calling for a “united cultural movement which will ward off the threat of the far right and strengthen communities damaged by the corrosive effects of racism”.
Although music is by no means immune to the forces of racism or nationalism, many genres (blues, jazz) have pulled spools of ethnic traditions together and celebrated different cultures for a global audience. It bypasses language barriers and in the case of the ADF melds cultural ore together showcasing the power of a ‘Zig Zag Nation’.