Pop Music Review : Desipalooza: Danceable Punjab Pop Finds L.A. Groove

It’s far from the Punjab region of India and Pakistan to Los Angeles’ Club Downtown--formerly Prince’s Glam Slam. But with Desipalooza, a celebration of modern, pop-ified music, echoes of those origins filled the club’s strobe-lighted dance floor Sunday as youths from the local Indian and Pakistani community reveled in a rare chance to see top pop stars from their culture.

In truth, much of the music was Punjabi in the sense that Ricky Martin’s pop is Latin. It incorporates Punjabi elements, but the framework comes straight out of London clubs where Anglo-Asians updated bhangra sounds in the mid-’70s. Pop, techno, disco, reggae, hip-hop and--yes--even Latin sounds mixed with the distinctive, loping dhol drumbeat, just as Sikh turbans bobbed next to backward baseball caps in the crowd.

England-based B21 and Stereo Nation--star deejays in both India and among Asian expatriates in Europe and the United States--more or less marked the range. The former kept the dhol beat front and center and sang mostly in Punjabi with a spirited sound familiar to Bombay film fans. But the latter diluted the roots almost to the point of invisibility in its schlocky hits “Don’t Break My Heart” and “Oh Carol.” Sukhbir, a bhangra chart-topper who lives in Dubai, fell somewhere between with his pop-star presence and catchy tunes, while a collective of L.A. performers under the bill of Ruckus Avenue introduced elements more native to Compton than the Punjab.

This was not deep-rooted Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or high-minded Cornershop or Bally Sagoo. This was pure pop. But the excitement that comes from a displaced culture partying on its own terms transcends any aesthetic quibbling.