On the first Thursday of the month, the crowd at world music club Sounds of Brazil watches young South Asians dance to the twang of sitars and the shallow rapping on the dhol drum, backed by a pulsing hip-hop beat. A crowd of about a hundred people squeezes in front of the main stage to watch these dancers compete for cheers. Dressed in track jackets and turbans, the two dancers face one another, mirroring each other’s dance moves with increasing speed until one falters, which causes the crowd to applaud and holler for the winner. Then the next two men face off.

“These are traditional moves,” said Rekha Malhotra, the DJ who provides the soundtrack to these ad hoc dance teams. “They love doing it on the dance floor. It’s kind of like a place to strut your stuff.”

Though many eyes are fixated on the dancing, Malhotra, known as DJ Rekha, controlled the dance floor. Malhotra spins traditional Punjabi music with dance hall, hip-hop and reggae. Malhotra is a fixture at Sounds of Brazil. Once a month is Basement Bhangra. For the last decade, people have danced into the early morning hours to Malhotra’s signature style of old-meets-new; east-meets-west. She brings two cultures together in her music, as she does to the dance floor.

The 36-year-old DJ is credited with cultivating the South Asian music scene in the city. “This is where it started. Right Here,” boasts Wyclef Jean on the opening track of Malhotra’s debut album, DJ Rekha Presents Basement Bhangra. Malhotra met Jean at Sounds of Brazil, where the Haitian American musician has played in the past. “We bonded on that immigrant tip right away,” Malhotra said. Early in Malhotra’s career, South Asian music was played sporadically at the club. “They weren’t really familiar with it,” she said of Sounds of Brazil.

When Malhotra started Basement Bhangra, she had a dedicated following of South Asians. Thanks to her relentless promotion, the crowd continued to grow in size and diversity, drawing a mix of world music aficionados, reggae fans, and people just looking for a good dance party. “It’s a place where South Asians feel proud to bring their coworkers and non-South Asian friends,” Malhotra said. “It’s a glimpse into their culture and it’s a club culture.”

Basement Bhangra was not always a microcosm of America’s melting pot, remembers the club’s promoter, Alex Damachek. “I know it wasn’t the packed club that it is now,” Damachek said. Sounds of Brazil had been the hottest world music club for decades, yet there was no South Asian music scene. Malhotra pitched Basement Bhangra to the club owner, Larry Gold. “Nobody else was doing it at the time,” Damachek said.

American pop fans caught wind of South Asian music when, in 2003, Jay-Z rapped over the international hit “Beware of the Boys,” by Panjabi MC. The song mixed a tightly plucked string instrument being played over the bass line to the Knight Rider theme song. Before Jay-Z made the song a big hit in America, Malhotra could not get the crowd into the song at a record release party for OutKast in 2000. “As we were doing the switch over, we had all the big names in the house: Busta, Puffy, Jay, OutKast. At the moment, I said, ‘This was my shot.’ I dropped the Panjabi MC song and they ignored it. Then they all walked out.”

Before Basement Bhrangra, Malhotra’s DJ set sandwiched Indian songs between hip-hop and club hits, which made up a bulk of her set. “I’m horrified to look at those crates now,” she said. Malhotra, who hails from Queens by way of London, grew up listening to ‘80s Bollywood movie scores heavily influenced by the ‘70s American disco scene. Throughout her college years, Malhotra was excited to hear music created by young British Asians who were influenced by traditional Indian and modern Western cultures. “I caught wind of a more hybrid sound,” Malhotra said. “It got to a point where it had an obvious gelling with hip hop.”

A goal for Malhotra was expand her fan base beyond world music fans and South Asians. Towards the end of her album, Malhotra makes the case, notably on “Glassy” and “Sexy Boy.” Malhotra, along with female British rapper Hard Kaur, moves the hip-hop element into the foreground and peppers the songs with Bhangra. “It’s good music. It’s danceable,” she said. “This is not ghettoized world music.”

by Dan Rivoli