Dub poetry

SOUND

The cover of the magazine in Heathrow airport reads "The New Asian Cool". Inside, more than eight pages proceed to rattle off a list of Asian people in the arts who, according to the breathless prose, have seemingly turned their skin colour into something trendy and desirable. Half an hour later in a beer garden in Harrow, the founding member of Asian Dub Foundation, Dr Das, almost chokes on his drink: "The New Asian Cool? Not that again, I thought that was last year," he splurts.

"Apart from being patronising, magazine headlines like that are bordering on racism. If we're `cool' now, does that mean we were `uncool' before, that we weren't acknowledged before, that it wasn't `cool' to talk to us at a bus stop? Asian Dub Foundation, Talvin Singh, Cornershop, Nitin Sawhney blah, blah, blah . . . they call us the "Asian Underground", it's a media fabrication and in that term there's a denial of the diversity of music made by Asian people. We're making Garage, Bhangra, Drum 'n' Bass and all variations thereof. The New Asian Cool? When will white journalists get over it?"

Appearance and reality - we're here to get it sorted. Appearance: Asian Dub Foundation are the best live band in Britain, they're called the "Asian Clash" because of their uncompromising political stance, they're po-faced ideologues who spend more time pamphleteering about long-lost lefty causes than they do performing. They're more into education and empowerment than cocaine and champagne. They're scary, humourless throwbacks to the heady punk days of Rock against Racism.

Reality: Asian Dub Foundation are the best live band in Britain. They are smiley, happy people who combine rock, rap, jungle and bhangra to produce one of the most exhilarating sounds in modern music. They're informed, articulate and tuned in to what's going on around them. They champion causes other "alternative" bands run for cover from. They are Mercury Prize nominees who almost single-handedly head up the Campaign For Real Lyrics. The Asian Clash? Not at all: they're a folk band, for chrissakes.

"We're always trotted out in that list of New Asians," says Dr Das, "and it's really annoying because we don't claim to represent anybody but ourselves. Our music is based on our own experiences as Asian people living in Britain - living beside a host community. We sing about having no opportunities, what it is like to be brown-skinned and how big a part of our lives that is. Our lyrics are a direct extension of the conversations we have - what's affecting us, what's happening around us. Our background also informs what we do: I started off teaching music technology on a community music programme. Another member, Pandit G, used to work in an organisation that monitored police and racial harassment in east London, and Chandrasonic, the guitarist, used to be in a techno-dub band."

Yet when some people think Asian Dub Foundation, they think: Political Band. "We're not a political band," says Das. "We express ourselves and in that expression we don't censor our lives in the lyrics we write. I think all that `Asian Clash' stuff is just because we are one of the few bands who are singing directly about our experiences - and obviously our experiences of being Asian in Britain will have those undercurrents. But check out your interview so far - it's all being about politics and not music. The guitarist, Chandrasonic, is going to go mad when he reads this; he'll be saying `stop talking about politics and talk about music'. Or words to that effect."

Oh yeah, the music. ADF are a simple mix of "junglist breakbeats, rap polemic, distorted punk rock electric guitars, dub poetry and grass roots activism boiled down into a dynamic sound clash - a sort of Lee `Scratch' Perry meets The Specials meets Public Enemy meets Afrika Bambaata meets a drum'n'bass frenzy". Formed in 1993, they began as a Sound System before adding guitar and bass and becoming a live band. Having done time with ye olde small indie label, they were signed to London Records (labelmates: All Saints), released the very excellent Rafi's Revenge in 1998 (which was nominated and really should have won that year's Mercury Music Prize), toured the world, and earlier this year released the album, Community Music.

"Back when we started we were on the periphery of the Acid House scene and we used to hang around with Orbital. We mainly did parties and anti-racist benefits with the Sound System, but the more we got into our instruments we decided to move things more toward a band set-up. It was really just expanding from DJ-ing to playing live. When the `Asian Underground' movement broke, we were always trying to disassociate ourselves from that scene but people always took it up the wrong way. They'd say `why don't you want to be associated with Asian acts' and we'd just ask `what's the name of our band again?' "

Live, they are a joy to behold. Coming across with all the earnest energy of an out-and-out rock band, they still retain a back-line that is rooted in technology. Samplers, sequencers and turntables add to the sound, providing a sonic explosion that manages to touch base with all the major musical genres and sub-genres of the past 30 years: there's dub, there's hip-hop, there are loud guitars, there's something for everyone in the audience.

"Technology is very important to our sound, and while we do use traditional Indian instruments like tablas and the sitar, we try to look forward with our music. When we first started playing live, it was all about Oasis and the other Britpop bands and they all seemed to be looking to the past for inspiration. We have a lyric in one of our songs that goes `Don't look to the past for inspiration/Move yourself forward with Dub acceleration', which sums it up."

You would think that such a technologically-enhanced updating of trad Indian music would draw flak from purists within the tradition, but rather bizarrely, the band found themselves being criticised by contemporary British music journalists. "These white people would say to us `You don't sound Indian enough, it's too modern. Why don't you use more tablas and sitars?'. It was very odd. I think all music has to tamper with tradition. Do you think traditional Irish music has remained pure and untouched for the last 1,000 years? When did the accordion enter into the equation? Look at what the purists were saying about Shane McGowan and The Pogues when they started."

Speaking of Ireland and their upcoming Witnness gig, ADF are aware of the increasingly difficult situation facing immigrants in this country. "It's just one of the things about our music, that whenever we play on the continent, we always seem to appeal to the immigrant population. Because we sing about what it's like to grow up different from the host community, we tend to get a lot of reaction from, say, Algerians in France or Turkish people in Germany who can really identify with our experience. It's shocking to think that Ireland, one of the most famous emigrant nations in the world, is maybe forgetting its history and all the shit that Irish immigrants went through abroad, in its treatment of immigrants and asylum-seekers."

A recent article in this paper about the rise of the "new folk" included ADF alongside more orthodox folk names such as Norma Waterson and Kate Rusby. "Really!" says Dr Das, he of the sampler, sequencer and turntable. "It's true, though, isn't it, in what we sing about and in our general outlook. We're just a bunch of folkies, aren't we?"

Rafi's Revenge and Community Music are on the London Label. Asian Dub Foundation headline the Witnness More stage on Sunday at 10.30 p.m at this weekend's Witnness Festival at Fairyhouse Racecourse. Tickets for the festival are available from the Witnness hotline: 1890 30 94866377 and on www.witnness.com