Gilles Peterson on Why Studio Monkey Shoulder Chose BFR Soundsystem from India

Worldwide FM founder and DJ and broadcaster Gilles Peterson has had plenty of brushes with India. Prior to DJing a handful of times, Peterson says he came “within a whisker” of signing Apache Indian, the Indian-origin reggae artist in the mid-Nineties.

Peterson has DJed in Mumbai and other cities, including Goa (“But I wasn’t playing Goa trance,” he says with a laugh over a Zoom call). He’s shared the stage and hosted producers like Sandunes and worked closely with Indian-origin artist Sarathy Korwar as well. “I haven’t been here enough to be honest with you,” Peterson says.

This time around, Peterson is in India as part of Studio Monkey Shoulder, a partnership between malt scotch whisky brand Monkey Shoulder and Worldwide FM to find and fund grassroots music communities around the world. After poring over applications – India was the “most popular of the amount of applications” according to Peterson – they selected Bass Foundation Roots Soundsystem and its founder, Delhi Sultanate aka Taru Dalmia to represent India, alongside other initiatives from Lagos, Sheffield, Miami and Taipei.

Peterson says Dalmia “ticked a lot of boxes for us” to be selected. There’s of course a socially and politically conscious to Delhi Sultanate and BFR Soundsystem, but here he was going a step ahead and working with Assam artist Daniel Langthasa aka Mr. India and his festival The Big Bang! Festival of Love. Held between Oct. 26 and 27 in Dima Hasao. Peterson says he’s glad Dalmia applied because he got to discover BFR Soundsystem’s work.

Although it was Worldwide FM’s project manager Magdalena Moursy who traveled to the festival in Assam, Peterson was around for a two-day gathering called Audio Quality Index in Mangar, on the outskirts of New Delhi. “There were two or three power cuts throughout but it was great. The audience was super reactive, in a way that showed me that they’re not just hearing this for the first time,” Peterson says. At the event, Dalmia took over everything from MCing to DJing, organizing and more. “He did so much and he played for a long time,” Peterson says. The Worldwide FM founder says he’s now more keen to bring Delhi Sultanate and BFR Soundsystem to one of his festivals in the U.K. soon.

Peterson adds, “This is one of the great things that we’re able to do on this initiative with Monkey Shoulder, which is to really encourage the community aspects of music and how it can grow from very small groups of people and become something significant and international.”

Peterson, who has spent his current India trip picking up Bollywood records via platforms like Digging In India, says “there’s a still a lot to discover” in the country. “There’s so many variations of [Indian music] – the folk stuff, the regional stuff… so I’m actually really hungry for more,” he says.