Punjabi disco: The mother and son behind a lost cult album

Kuljit Bhamra is a musician and composer who is also credited with spearheading the Bhangra movement in the UK - a genre that blends Punjabi folk music with Western styles and production. Kuljit was four when he began playing tabla, the traditional Indian hand drums, at parties across 1970s Britain, with his mother Mohinder Bhamra, an accomplished vocalist of Punjabi folk songs. The Bhamra family became an in-demand travelling band and encouraged women to the typically segregated dancefloors of the time. In 1982 Kuljit and Mohinder produced a groundbreaking record called Punjabi Disco. It fused electronic beats with Punjabi lyrics and captured the spirit of a new generation of British South Asians. Only 500 copies were made and it faded into obscurity, but decades later it's being recognised as the first British Asian electronic dance album ever recorded. It is being reissued this month by Naya Beat Records.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Producer: May Cameron

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(Photo: Two portraits of Mohinder and Kuljit Bhamra overlayed on top of each other. Credit: Kuljit Bhamra)