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Vocals, Compositions, Poetry
and Lyric Writing, Percussions, Tablas, Dholkis, Nalak
JoSH
| Rup (Rupinder Magon)
was born and raised in Montréal, Canada. Raised in a practicing
and religious Sikh family, his first experience with music came
from the Gurdwara (Sikh Temple). As he was never truly trained
in the instrument, by listening to professional ragis, at age
six he slowly picked up the tabla. His mother used to regularly
sing at the Gurdwara, so he used to help her practice by providing
the tabla beat as she sang on her harmonium. Eventually as he
played with more people, he learned a freestyle method of playing
the instrument and learned different beats from the different
ragi jathas that would come to town. His natural progression
in tabla lead to always being close to the harmonium. Thus, he
learned how to sing hymns on the harmonium, and combined with
the piano lessons he had been taking for five years, he was able
to learn the instrument rather quickly.
Thanks to his upbringing in
Sadh Sangath and guidance of illuminated souls, Rup uses the
music medium to share his thoughts of philosophy and spirituality
in JoSH's albums. Rup's musical influences include Indian ragas,
North American mainstream pop music, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and
Michael Jackson. Pursuing his education in Montréal, Rup
completed his bachelor's degree at Concordia University in Economics.
He has been working in the software business for over six years
and moved to New York City in 2000. Currently, he works out of
New York and Montréal.
As an original member, he along
with Shazi Hussain and his brother Rik, began a band called JoSH.
JoSH initially started as a band that performed covers of any
type of music including popular Punjabi, filmi, kawali or ghazals.
JoSH impressed its crowds with its versatility. Rup's main role
in JoSH at that time would be as a back-up singer as well as
a percussionist.
Over time, as the group improved
its skill set, Rup has become a lead singer, as well as music
arranger and co-producer with his partner and best friend, Q.
Today JoSH, comprising of q and Rup, has pierced through the
difficult mainstream walls and have succeeded to perform with
major artists including Sukhbir and Nelly Furtado. Recently,
the duo has produced hit remixes for Nelly Furtado's album 'Loose'.
'The Promiscuous Girl' and 'Maneater' 'JoSH Desi Remixes' have
taken the music markets by storm and are played in the biggest
clubs in North American.
Josh released their first album
'Main Hoon Tanha' in 2001 and smash hit second album 'Kabhi'
in 2004 with Universal Music. They are now set to release 'Mausam',
also with Universal Music India, which adds yet another dimension
the original JoSH sound and features amazing remixes by none
other than Rishi Rish and RDB.
With his musical and business
backgrounds, Rup takes care of most of the business dealings
with record labels and distributors that JoSH works with. Under
the JoSH Entertainment umbrella, JoSH has begun producing several
artists, which will soon be releasing in various Indian Music
markets around the globe.
Vocals, Compositions, Poetry
and Lyric Writing, Guitars, Synths, Drum Programming
Q (Qurram Hussain) joined JoSH once the band was
already established. They had already done a number of key shows,
gaining exposure with the South Asian audiences in Montréal,
and were starting to make a name for themselves. q's arrival
only helped to solidify the band and he brought with him a unique
perspective on fusion.
A product of the 1980s glam rock era, q's earliest influences
include bands such as Guns'n'Roses and Europe.
"I remember listening
to these bands and thinking, I could do this. I can be Slash"
he recalls.
Those desires faded away to
make room for the love of more Alternative vibes such as Pearl
Jam, Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots. This was also the time
when q decided to explore music as an art form and joined an
alternative band called "Black eyed Susan" as the lead
singer and guitarist. Short lived as that was, it was his first
exposure to the thrill of performing music live.
Somewhere along his musical
journey, q's interests started to change and he found himself
more and more interested in a variety of musical genres including
R&B, Hip Hop, Drum n' Bass (à la Talvin Singh), and
qawwali such as that being created by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
The music industry in the United Kingdom was experiencing releases
of CDs like 'Anokha: Soundz of the Asian Underground' and there
was a buzz in the industry of what the next interpretation of
fusion was going to sound like. In the midst of all this, q was
busy finding his own sound, his own interpretation of all his
various influences and defining his own art. That gave birth
to one of his first compositions for JoSH, 'Main Hoon Tanha',
which also ended up being the title track for their extremely
successful debut album. That spark got the creative juices flowing,
and he was able to explore more ideas, eventually ending up with
eight songs that defined JoSH's, 'Main Hoon Tanha'.
Teaming up with Rup has given
q the ability to explore his love for the music arts, and to
explore it with a partner that understands him completely. This
musical journey has led to the creation of 'Kabhi', JoSH's much-anticipated
second album, as well as various other projects including a remix
of Grammy winner Nelly Furtado's latest singles, 'Promiscuous
Girl' and 'Maneater'.
"The influences keep changing,
the ideas keep evolving. I'm just lucky that I'm able to find
the interpretations of all this from time to time and continue
making music that I enjoy listening to."
For further information, www.planetjosh.com
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