From Mysore to Windsor Castle, from college festivals in India to Glastonbury, Raghu Dixit soldiers on as he has for over two decades, infecting people with an itch to sing and dance with abandon.
Often regarded as the pioneer of independent music in India, his band - The Raghu Dixit Project - masterfully navigates many worlds, across time, forging friendships between unlikely musical allies – his incurable pride for his roots and his unabashed desire to reimagine it. At a time when the music scene in India was scouring the world for inspiration, Raghu’s work turned the gaze.
He sang in his language, Kannada, songs written by mystic poets from his land, wore a lungi (a traditional wrap around cloth) and ghunghroo (bells), on stage with a Carnatic Classical violin on one side and an electric guitar on the other. He wasn’t trying to make a statement.
He was just being himself. Proud. Unafraid. Relentless. comfortable in his own skin. Unaware, The Raghu Dixit Project created a genre and inspired a generation of artists singing proudly in vernacular languages.
Raghu Dixit isn't just a singer of songs. He is a wandering minstrel, a teller of stories. His songs speak of his journey, his learnings, his trials and triumphs, his griefs and joys, all masterfully crafted into an intricate weave of verses and sounds. In his concerts, he’d have you laugh and cry and sing and dance. But all the while, all he desires to do is to speak with you and be with you like a friend you always had, and will always have.
Today, after over 2000 concerts across 5 continents, it's perhaps more appropriate to call it
The Raghu Dixit Experience - because beyond all that song and dance, that's all it is -
an experience difficult to forget!