Bloodywood: Street Metal / Rap with Traditional Instruments from India

Bloodywood is a “street metal” band from India that mixes modern metal riffs, rap + screamed + sung vocals, and various traditional Indian instruments (especially the dhol, ektara, and Indian style flute). Karan Katiyar and Jayant Bhadula started the band by recording covers of various pop songs, but then morphed into a band that does originals. The metamorphosis seemed to occur after they released “Ari Ari,” which is technically a cover of the Punjabi folk song “Baari Barsi” that is about fighting for unity (“despite all our differences, we are one”). I say “technically” because about 70%+ of their version of the song is original to the band – the riffs, the rap vocals, the way the various instruments play together, etc. But after this song, it seems that they started doing all original songs.

The video to “Ari Ari” is also an excellent place to start with the band, as it mixes in scenes from the streets of India with a local Indian dance group (Master Academy of Dance) they found that was able to come up with some great choreography for the song. Note that the rapper Raoul Kerr was not a part of the band at this time, but a guest on this song. He worked out so well in the mix that he is a member of the band now. Their new songs are awesome as well, and I will probably write about them here in the future. Follow them on Facebook or YouTube, and for now enjoy the awesomeness that is “Ari Ari” (FYI there is some language in here in case you are listening at work):

Voice of Baceprot: Hijab-Core Funk Rap Metal from Indonesia

Voice of Baceprot (also abbreviated as VoB, meaning “noisy” in Sundanese) is a metal / rap / funk band from Indonesia, often referred to as Hijab-Core because all three members are teenagers that wear Hijab head coverings. Their lyrics are mostly in Sundanese (their native language), with a few lines of English as well.

In addition to breaking all of those molds, the really amazing fact about this band is that they had not even heard of heavy metal music until their school teacher introduced it to them fairly recently. They loved it and started learning instruments.

As you can see from the video, they didn’t just learn their instruments… they dominated them. That is some serious power behind how they play all of their instruments. Lest you think this is just a gimmick or trick of the camera, they can also pull off their impressive skills live as well:

I don’t totally know what exactly they are singing / rapping about, but it appears to be they are talking about equality and social issues, which is a brave thing to do seeing they are children of farmers from conservative Muslim rural areas Indonesia.

But for those of that grew up on 80s heavy metal, which got a bit stale and repetitive every time a new sub-genre hit it big, bands like VoB are a breath of fresh air. Metal didn’t die here in the U.S., of course, but interesting to see it being kept alive (and totally shredding) by teenagers on the other side of the world. They have a Facebook page that seems to be the best place to keep up with their new music (they only have a few songs so far – looking forward to more).