Ammar Kalia

In 1980s Mogadishu a golden era of musical experimentation was under way. Following the proclamation of an independent Somalia in 1960, a...

‘C an you own a rhythm?” asks British-Egyptian historian Dr Hannah Elsisi. She points out that pop charts around the world are infused...

Listen to my NTS guest show celebrating the release of A Person Is A Prayer here . [The show was broadcast live on 28/09/24]

In the 1980s, Uzbekistan was a unique cultural meeting place. During the second world war, the Central Asian country became home for many...

“Raga is emotion. It’s music that can transform you from feeling happiness to feeling despair or vice versa,” says Ali Riaz Baqar. “And...

On a hot Friday night in July, 120 people are gathered in the dark basement of a central London hotel, laughing raucously. They are...

In October 2019, I was in India, standing by the dusty banks of the Ganges on a quest to spread my grandmother’s ashes. She hadn’t lived...

Mdou Moctar isn’t one to sit still. Over the past decade, the Niger-born guitarist has been gigging almost constantly, honing his...

2023 has been another bumper year for TV costume departments. From the silk-lined luxury of Succession to the haute couture return of And...

On every street in Britain, you’re likely to find a piece of litter. It is estimated that 2m pieces of rubbish are dropped in the UK...

In a corner of suburban South London, four musicians are hunkered in a dark room, sinking deep into a groove. On Moog synth and violin,...

Not much comes close to the experience of watching BCUC live. The South African seven-piece have spent the past 20 years honing their...

At 17, Riaz Bacchus was DJing on pirate radio stations in London when he stumbled on a genre of music that seemed to perfectly express...

Seventy hours into the birth of his first child, Lewis was told that his wife needed to be rushed into surgery for an emergency...

Forty-five years ago, audiences first glimpsed the sun-kissed, palm-lined campus of Rydell High, the school setting for the movie musical...

“We played for three days straight with no notes on the page and no repeats. There were 12 musicians in the room, just listening and...

I used to watch an unhealthy amount of TV. A minimum of 24 shows per week for the best part of two years, to be precise, when I worked on...

A year into the pandemic, in early 2021, I was spending most of my time online. I sat and I scrolled – on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram...

For two years, I watched a minimum of 24 TV shows every week. From Strictly Come Dancing to The Crown, BBC Four documentaries on canals...

For much of the last decade, improvised music in the UK has been carving out its own path. Interweaving everything from saxophonist Nubya...