[BRIEF NOTE] On all the pop musics
Mar. 24th, 2011 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldI'd never heard of Raghav before I came across Guy Dixon's article on him in Saturday's Globe and Mail, "Is Raghav Canada’s least well known pop star?". I didn't even hear of his top 40 single "So Much".
I suppose that the reason I'd not heard of Raghav or "So Much" before is that there's no longer a unified popular music in Canada, that mass audiences in the traditional sense no longer exist and have been replaced by multiple overlapping interest groups driven by genre and region and ethnicity and language. There's crossover acts, but is Raghav one? More importantly, is he an enduring one? I'll get back to you.
Indo-Canadian pop star Raghav has a fistful of top-10 British hits and has done stadium shows before tens of thousands of fans on other continents. But as he sat down to talk in a Toronto hotel lobby, hostesses from a trade show looked on blankly. No one else seemed to care, either.
“If you and I walked through the Eaton Centre, 90 per cent of the people wouldn’t know who the hell I was,” he says, “and 5 per cent – which I’d say would be from the South Asian population – would be going ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Raghav!’ ”
But Toronto-born, Alberta-raised Raghav (whose full name is Raghav Mathur and whose parents are Punjabi immigrants to Canada) understands his anonymity at home. Until now, the singer has focused on the U.K., as well as farther-flung markets such as India and Africa, and in particular on the South Asian audiences in those locales.
Only now, as he is about to turn 30, is he trying to break into the North America mainstream. His timing can’t be faulted: His top-40 hit So Much, with rapper Kardinal Offishall, is up for best R&B/soul recording of the year at next weekend’s Juno Awards.
“I’ve got a massive following in Africa and India, and I don’t want to ignore the fan base that has set me up. I mean, we’ve done stadiums out there – 16,000 people in Nairobi. People don’t even know I’ve done the SkyDome [the Rogers Centre] in Toronto! Honestly, people don’t know that because it’s only the South Asian community that has shown up in the past.”
As Raghav insists, though, his music isn’t just geared towards one community or one country. Listen to any of his singles – from his early reggae and dancehall-infused So Confused to his song Fire, featuring Timbaland collaborator Jim Beanz – and you hear a commercial club-pop sound that could come from anywhere in the world.
“The idea is to take over the world, but I’ve started in my own backyard,” he says.
[. . . F]inally, his music is getting wider recognition here at home. Along with his Juno nomination, Raghav is on the short list for a Canadian Radio Music Award. He also has a new album in the works. “I love this feeling of being a brand-new artist,” he says, as hotel guests walked by unaware – for now.
I suppose that the reason I'd not heard of Raghav or "So Much" before is that there's no longer a unified popular music in Canada, that mass audiences in the traditional sense no longer exist and have been replaced by multiple overlapping interest groups driven by genre and region and ethnicity and language. There's crossover acts, but is Raghav one? More importantly, is he an enduring one? I'll get back to you.
