Dub Qalandar - put this in your diary

Two cultures from ten thousand miles apart meet up in Birmingham, which just happens to be EXACTLY midway between. That's grounds for celebration.

Birmingham sits halfway between the centres of two of its most compelling and now deeply engrained cultures. Go five thousand miles one way, and you fetch up in the Caribbean. Go the same distance the other way? You're in Pakistan. 

Since the Second World War, cultures from both regions and elsewhere have been bumping up against each other, in inner city Birmingham suburbs... for seventy years. And now, beats and grooves are coming together, in a very deliberate, conscious way. 

This weekend Birmingham sees a Rugby World Cup games, thousands exploring a revamped New Street station and its shopping mall, and Birmingham Weekender, this year's Artsfest replacement. Add in relentless roadworks, and the city will be... challenging. But find your way to Symphony Hall on Sunday 27th, and you're in for a free but very valuable treat: Dub Qalandar. It's the headline show for all of the weekend. Conscious Dub grooves, and sacred Sufi songs coming together in Birmingham. Well, it's what we do.

Or, rather, it's what Mukhtar Dar and Simon Duggal do.

Mendi and the Boys from Brazil... Ireland... Switzerland... Moseley....

World music, Reggae, Beats, Jazz, Folk and cross-cultural collaboration. It's never been better. Seriously.

Mendi and Luiz at SWC Birmingham 2011, from a video later  in this post

When we talk about Birmingham music of the 60s and 70s, we think Metal and Rock. 

By the 80s, Birmingham was a centre for UK reggae, and that still goes on now, with all sorts of urban styles spinning off the Roots base. 

But I think we’re seeing something else right now, something new, and it's hugely exciting: boundary-free musical experimentation, driven by savvy skilled musicians of all stripes and cultures, who simply work together on new projects. It's exciting and inspiring. 

I don’t know how it works for you, but I get a dizzy thrill from watching and listening to outstanding musicians live. For all the buzz from online music, disks and mp3 players – and I wouldn’t change any of that – it’s always topped when a musician does something magical, right in front of me. That's getting into sacred territory.  

I had a moment like that last year watching the performers above; you can see the full YouTube clip, shot on a smartphone at Songwriters Café last year.Tabla and Guitar. It's after the jump.