The BOB mentality
On the 65th anniversary of reggae legend Bob Marley in February 2010, seven musicians and close friends decided to celebrate his music.
The merry ensemble eventually went on to become a permanent band consisting of Chintan Kalra on vocals and dub machine, Ishaan Chhabra and Manas Baruah on keys, Nikhil Vasudevan on drums, Raghav Dang and Rohit Kulkarni on guitar and vocals and Sid Mathur on bass. They decided to call themselves Mob Marley Inc. for obvious reasons. We caught up with the band members at a popular nightspot, where they were belting out their icon’s biggest chartbusters.
“We are all stuck in a common groove called reggae. Anything between a quartet to an octet on stage, our repertoire ranges across Bob Marley tunes and some Damien Marley poetry to spontaneous glitch-rap-reggae jams, peppered with honest renditions of some original political song and some dubbed-down, funked-up classics,” says Chintan Kalra.
Coming together for a cause, the cause being none else than the musician Bob Marley, all the band members have different backgrounds and play different kinds of music.
Talking about their inspiration, the band believes that he was not just a reggae luminary but also a cultural icon who implored his people to know their history which ‘came from the root of King David, through the line of Solomon’ as he sang Blackman Redemption. “We love most of his tracks but favourites are I Shot the Sheriff, No Woman No Cry, Stir it Up, One Love or for that matter Three Little Birds. The lyrics and music stand out,” puts forth Nikhil Vasudevan. Marley’s music always had a cause attached to it. “He decided to use music to fight against racism, colonialism and other ‘isms’,” he adds. Although world music is slowly gaining acceptance among the true-blue music lovers, reggae as a genre still is yet to gain fertile ground in the country.
“Reggae is not just music, it’s a very serious art. And as they say, it sucks you in, it sucks you in good. Our fans tell us that the best position to listen to our music for maximum effect is lying down on the floor of a dilapidated shack, with a joint hanging from stoned fingers, right in middle of a full blown rave party,” exclaims Sid Mathur.
Talking about their future plans, Mob Marley Inc. reveals, “We are working on our soon to-be-released debut album but till that happens, we are very live, very current, electric not electronic, a hopingly-happy band you dance to, and not just listen to.”
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