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"Well, I created this song only to play live, during shows or clinics. You won't find it on any future album. The James Brown samples are actually loops from a track that Steve Smith uses in his clinics. When he sent his track of this to me, I thought it would be cool to do tabla on top of it.
First I was just playing along with it, but then I thought of a super tight arrangement where all the different Indian accents could fall with the vocals. So I remixed it, chopped it up and changed the tempo quite a bit... now it has 180BPM, like super fast!"
"Well, there are different compositions in it, but most are traditional patterns. I am playing something called Rella, a drum roll like movement on the tabla. There are lots of types of Rella, but two main types. The first is a closed Rella, a little bit like a double stroke roll on the drums to get the staccato sounds. And there is the Rang Rella -a more ringing Rella- where you combine the closed tones with open tones. These are more articulate and harder to play. You can hear it when you listen to it, it has more space and is more groovy. There is also the Lucknow Rella. Ed Hanley, a fantastic tabla player from Canada, plays this Lucknow Rella."
"Well, it is a different sounding track. A kind of Funky thing with an interesting combination: James Brown with intensely traditional tabla playing. So, download and listen to it - I hope you enjoy it."
