IF YOU ever meet Nitin Sawhney be prepared to be bowled over by one of the most open and humble contemporary stars in Britain. He sweeps away the first observation that he is a campaigner for social causes. “I’ve never considered myself that. I just say things that I think,” he tells the GG2 Power List. And what he thinks is clear if you follow his posts on X.
Consider his views of our current government and the prime minister, Rishi Sunak. “We have a representation for Asian people in this country, in government right now, which is on one hand a fantastic thing, but what they are doing or what they’re saying is absolutely disgusting, and absolutely repulsive to me in every single way,” he said. “Look at what’s going on now with the Post Office scandal, there are connections there... We have a responsibility as people to be kind and thoughtful to those who are less fortunate than us. That’s a basic human principle as far as I’m concerned, and this government does the opposite of that.
” Sawhney is known globally as a musician, producer and composer, and has worked with Sir Paul McCartney, Sting, late Sinead O’Conner, AR Rahman, Anoushka Shankar and so many other musical greats. The artiste sells out the Royal Albert Hall. “I’m very aware that I’ve had an amazing de gree of acknowledgement and kindness from a lot of people,” he said. “I was at the Royal Al bert Hall recently, afterwards, we went into this massive room, and I thought it’d be a small queue to sign my vinyl records and the entire room was absolutely full of people who wanted to come up and shake my hand and say how much they enjoy the concert, to chat and be photographed and so on. So, that was wonder ful. That’s happened quite a few times over the years, and it surprises me every time.” That surprise is genuine. But it could have been all so different. Like many south Asians, his parents wanted him to be a doctor. He stud ied law and was on his way to becoming an ac countant. He then broke the news that his heart lay in the arts. While on his accountancy course he met another icon, Sanjeev Bhaskar, who was doing business studies. “We really clicked,” he recalled.
“We were in separable for quite a long time, and we shared a flat for 10 years or something like that in Tooting (London). That’s where Goodness Gracious Me kind of started in a way because we did Secret Asians, which was a comedy duo, and we started doing that up and down the country, which is really good fun.” “At that time, people were talking about the Asian underground, and I was part of this scene of DJs who were doing the club scene in London. I’d already released albums. I was signed to Outcaste Records, an independent Asian label, and everything went amazingly well after that.” Sawhney’s musical influences are based on his childhood. His father would listen to flamenco, Indian
classical music and crooners such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Dean Martin. His el der brother was into rock – Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, while Sawhney would listen to Radio Caroline – a pirate station – when he was not learning tabla in a local gurdwara. After he told his parents that he wanted to try the unstable world of musical entertainment, they gave him a year to succeed. His father passed away in 2013, but Sawhney knows how proud he – and his mother – was of his accomplishments. He turned down an OBE in 2007, but he did accept the CBE in 2019. “I was offered an OBE, and I said no at the time because I didn’t really want the word em pire after my name, and I didn’t really approve of what happened with the invasion of Iraq and what happened there, which I thought was pretty disgusting,” he explained. “My dad was really upset, and I said, ‘I don’t want the word empire after my name’. And dad said, ‘But it’s a measure of how far we’ve come. We came to this country with nothing, and there you are getting offered something like that, in a way you’re taking it for all of us.’ “My dad passed away in 2013. And then in 2018 on his birthday, I got a letter saying, we’re offering you a CBE, and I kind of looked at that, and it really struck me very strongly that it was his birthday, and so I thought, I’m going to have to take this. So, I took it for him. And I thought, why is it that I’m just criticising people of colour who take it. They get a lot of stick for taking this. It’s not our fault that it’s got the word empire after it.” Sawhney was born in London in 1964, but he was raised in Rochester in Kent, in a place which had few south Asians at the time. It was the era of the National Front, and he experienced his fair share of racism. But he re members fondly the friends with whom he played music, which proved to be lifelong. Unlike many, he is unafraid about speaking about his identity. “I think it’s an amazing thing that you see people who champion assimilation instead of integration,” he said. “Those in authority try to make it seem that’s a better way forward. It’s not. It’s far better to be able to retain your her itage and your culture, and at the same time, have an awareness. “You’re already living in this context, you don’t need anyone to help you understand it. We live in a dynamic world, the world changes and is fluid and I get frustrated so much with idiots who actually try to push this kind of concept that we need to have a homogenous culture to prosper and do well in life. It’s ridiculous.” The Ivors Academy honoured him with a lifetime achievement award at the 2017 Ivor Novello Awards. For the past four years, he has been the chair of the PRS Foundation, and one of his highlights are the grants it gives to young musicians of colour. And the prestigious Book er Prize has asked him to be one of the judges. “I identify myself as somebody who loves music, who enjoys life as much as I can,” he concluded while in conversation with the Power List. “Someone who feels a sense of responsibility, because I’ve had quite a lucky, fortunate privileged existence – things have gone well for me.”
