This Penn Also Sings

We watched Pentatonix, an a cappella group, do the Evolution of Western Music video, and wanted to do something similar for Bollywood music. We wanted to create an anthology of musical works that would be able to catalogue this genre in a fun way. We shortlisted about 200 songs, and then whittled down the list to around three dozen songs. We had to make some tough decisions, but when you are trying to encapsulate almost a century of fine Indian music into five minutes, it is inevitable.

How did it all start?

In 1996, four students at the University of Pennsylvania —  Naveen Wadhera, Kunal Bajaj, Deep Trivedi and Himanshu Sheth — who shared a passion for combining Hindi and Western music, met, and the genre of Indian a cappella was created. We performed at college campuses around the US and even got featured in American Desi in 2001. We have now performed around the world, including India, with our most recent visit being a five-city India tour in 2013.

What is your contribution to the Hindi film music?

We hope that our experimental medley unearthed the many facets of Bollywood that can easily be forgotten. For example, Mohammad Rafi’s intonation, RD and SD Burman’s arranging genius, and Lata Mangeshkar’s incredible career. So much of modern Bollywood takes from the style of decades past, and we wanted to provoke a conversation about this.

What’s your latest work?

Our latest video is Without You/Teri Jhuki Nazar, a Hindi-English mash-up between Without You (by David Guetta) and Teri jhuki nazar (from the soundtrack of Murder 3).

Is Penn Masala limited to Hindi music?

Our album Kaavish (2013) incorporated a record number of languages. The Indian music industry has taken a lot of inspiration from south Indian music, classical Carnatic and Hindustani music, and from Pakistan and other countries’ genres, and we have tried to reflect that in our music.