Sometimes you forget how good a particular song or video is. I was clicking around randomly on youtube while I worked and the first click onto Estelle's American Boy led, via a series of clicks, to Dil Cheez by Bally Sagoo, the very first Asian music video that we watched in drop-jawed astonishment rather than toe-curling embarrassment.
A short history lesson - Asian music before Bally Sagoo was a pretty awful affair for everyone outside of the culture, and sometimes even for those of us inside the culture. Sure, we'd dance around the room to the music videos on the Indian music channels, but we'd rather die that let any of our English school friends catch us listening to those songs or watching those technicolour, costume changing, hip thrusting videos.
Then along came Dil Cheez by Bally Sagoo. I remember watching Top of the Pops with my sisters in eager anticipation to see where it would chart, and breathing a sigh of relief when it clocked a not too shabby Number 12. Friends wanted to know what the lyrics were, and I enjoyed a brief period of coolness when I'd casually drop the tape into the cassette player and press play in the company of various Lisas and Rachels.
That of course was only when my older sister would let me have the tape, which was not very often. Ergo, I was still uncool most of the time.
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