Ted Swedenburg, "Fun^Da^Mental: Punjabi Folk, Post-Bhangra and Islamic Rap, from the Subcontinent to the Metropole. "

In the course of its fourteen-year history, British band Fun^Da^Mental, led by Pakistani immigrant Aki Nawaz, has deployed an array of musical genres from the Subcontinent (bhangra, Punjabi folk, Hindustani classical, qawwali, and Baul). Combining such forms with an equally eclectic set of Western and global genres (punk, dancehall, rap, industrial, Zulu choral music, etc.), it produces recordings that band members variously term "global chaos" and "political folk music." The band advocates equally complicated and multivalent sorts of identity and religious orientations. Fun^Da^Mental pushes militant and provocative Islam-positive and anti-racist politics in the British context, while at the same time being concerned with making connections, to global "black," progressive and anti-colonialist struggles. This paper investigates the intricate, sophisticated and sometimes dizzying musical, religious and political dimensions of the work of Fun^Da^Mental.