Kuldeep Manak (Sucha Soorma - Path Of The Righteous Man)

Maximum NRG (The Funky Child): Bhangra and Breaks

In the early 1990s, West London, England was the scene of South Asian kids expressing themselves though music. This sub-culture was marked by two main influences, rural sub-continent lyrics underlaid by jeep beats. This new urban sound had amongst it's ingredients Punjab’s folk music Bhangra combined with US influenced hip-hop. This was the setting we found ourselves in, the DJs known as Maximum NRG (terrible name – we know). 

Formed by a few mates from Southall and Hounslow in the early 90s, we had by the end of that decade been lucky enough to be part of a movement that combined the already evolved sound of say Wolverhampton's Sahotas with Brooklyn’s Notorious B.I.G. Friends such as Hustlers Convention, Asian DJ Culture and Ambassadors of Sound were huge critical masses of that scene. 

The finest moments of this identity expression was to be found in the weekly schedules of mainstream music clubs, beginning in London that hosted, now almost beyond imagination, nights like Bombay Jungle at The Wag, and the incomparable Hot 'n' Spicy at Shaftesbury Avenue’s disused church: Limelight. Birmingham and Nottingham also stood out with Church Club and Kitsch Club. Suddenly, Bhangra was no longer suburban.

This is reputation that we hope Maximum NRG is remembered for. To have, along with tenacious promoters, brought weekly bhangra nights into the public arena – we're talking weekly Bhangra in Chinatown! Suddenly the term minority just seems idiotic. Taking music that we were listening to in our cars, homes, weddings and Walkmans and pumping it though the sound rigs at Ministry of Sound, Bagleys and even Britain’s favourite seaside camp site Great Yarmouth, we found that not only was there a market for it but it was based on genuine musical love. Those who we played with, and to, did not wish to make a choice between Jungle, Bhangra, H&G, R 'n' B and Hip-Hop. 

They wanted the diversity - that was and is our British identity. 

Us? We were just lucky to be available and unemployed and had amongst us a pretty good Mixman - The Funky Child. So, this page is for him and for all those who let us entertain them – thank you ji for the memories. We may never see their likes again.

Thank you for allowing us to share some of those mixes that we tried live at clubs with nothing but two decks, a mixer and a mic. One night we even plugged a three band Walkman with low-battery so we could play Bindrakhia’s Dupatta.  We couldn't do any "rewind" requests! 

We hope you enjoy our old-skool Bhangra sound, it has brought us many awards but what we love most is that because of the music we mix, we can dream that Sardool Sikandar’s best mate was DJ Premier.

#bhangralove