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Apache Indian, the young rapper from Birmingham, has become a superstar in the British Asian communities in the last 12 months... 'Boom Shack-A-Lak' was his first Top 5 smash in August '93.Though his chart career was a relatively short one, with all his Top 40 hits between 1993 and 1995, the self-styled bhangramuffin Steven Kapur nonetheless has his place in pop history as one of the remarkably few acts from Britain's Asian communities to achieve mainstream success for any length of time. There are pages and pages to be written about the persistent absence of bhangra and other British Asian music from the charts and from most radio stations, despite its obvious popularity, but that's beyond our scope here. One obvious advantage Mr Indian had, at least in a 1993 context, was the cross-cultural nature of his music; clearly picking up on the sounds of the streets in the West Midlands, he blended elements of Indian classical and popular music with American rap and the reggae sounds that were everywhere that summer.
The lascivious but cheeky approach of 'Boom Shack-A-Lack' is particularly reminiscent of Shaggy, who'd had his first UK hit earlier that year with 'Oh Carolina', at the head of the nation's first all-ragga Top 3. As such the song lacks the political overtones of some of his material, but it's a good party track and one with enough appeal and memorability to have been used almost endlessly in adverts and movies. Whilst this and the last track aren't often compared, one thing they do have in common is their personality, rather a contrast from some of the more faceless dance tracks around this time. However, there's no excuse for playing air guitar like that in your video.
Available on: The Best Of
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