Playing to people who don't look like you with Sarathy Korwar, Damien Escobar, Fehdah and Osman Gerein
Music Life is led this week by percussionist and producer Sarathy Korwar. He was born in the US and grew up in Ahmedabad and Chennai in India, and began playing tabla at the age of 10. His album More Arriving was released last year; featuring rappers from Mumbai and New Delhi, it was described as “an honest reflection of [the] experience of being an Indian in Britain”. Joining him is the American violinist, author, and entrepreneur Damien Escobar from New York; Irish, by way of Sierra Leone, future-Afro soul vocalist, producer and multi-instrumentalist Fehdah; and percussionist Osman Gerein, who plays with The Scorpios, of whom several members are originally from Central Sudan but are now based in the UK after fleeing the fundamentalist takeover in that region. They’ll be finding common ground in the music they make by discussing relationships with their instruments, how much they need to practice, whether audiences look like them, and what rituals they go through to perform.