’94 – Now: Collaborations

Asian Dub Foundation (ADF) celebrate 30 years of their radical history this autumn with this collection of the mightiest of their collaborations. The core of the band came together at Community Music in East London, the radical institution created in the 80s by legendary pioneering percussionist John Stevens and educationalist Dave O’Donnell. They soon found themselves surfing the rising Asian underground dance floor wave which also brought artists like Joi, State of Bengal, Nitin Sawhney and Talvin Singh into prominence. Asian Dub Foundation have rocked through three decades, thousands of gigs and nine albums with their signature fusion of radicalism, dub, punk, jungle, electronica, South Asian music, experimentalism and social action. This compilation scales many heights, like the stunning ‘Taa Deem’ with titanic vocals from qawwali master Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a slamming bhangra-rock treatment of ‘No Fun’ with Iggy Pop, and the emotive spirituality of Sinéad O’Connor on ‘1000 Mirrors’, a song Asian Dub Foundation’s Steve Chandra wrote for her about Zoora Shah, ‘a woman wrongly imprisoned for being forced to take action against a deeply abusive husband.’ Undoubtedly there are too many lethal tracks to mention here, but I’ll include ‘Comin’ Over Here’, the fissile satire on anti-immigrant politicians they made with the comedian Stewart Lee, number one in UK charts on the day the UK left the EU in 2020, and ‘Free Satpal Ram’, for the victim of a racist attack who was arrested for defending himself in Birmingham in 1986, a Clash-like anthem on which Asian Dub Foundation were aided and abetted by Primal Scream. Hopefully, this is just volume one… what about other iconic Asian Dub Foundation collaborators like Benjamin Zephaniah, Greta Thunberg, Ana Tijoux, Rage Against the Machine and Radiohead?