Thursday night at Glastonbury was pure brown joy. South Asians at the festival’s Lonely Hearts Club stage exchanged knowing looks of shock and elation as Sbtrkt closed his set with a track rarely heard outside Spotify playlists: Jai Paul’s Str8 Outta Mumbai. The crowd had barely settled from the high energy tablas when London-based south Asian DJ Jyoty took the stage with banger after banger: a highlight was hearing British Asian pop star Jay Sean, as well as an Afrobeats mix of classic Hindi hit Bheegi Bheegi Raaton Mein which she prefaced: “Where my brown people at?” One punter, Rahul, described it as “life-affirming”.
This was just the beginning of this year’s south Asian offering, which has grown at Glastonbury in the past couple of years to make the festival one of the leading champions of the British Asian dance underground. In 2022, there was a thrilling takeover by dance music collective Daytimers and back-to-back sets by Yung Singh, Ahadadream and Manara; the latter three featured in this year’s lineup too, with multiple shows.
