‘The label made 500 copies – we sold it in corner shops’: the story behind lost dance music classic Punjabi Disco

‘Punjabi Disco is the holy grail of British Asian music,” DJ and label boss Raghav Mani says. “It’s a miracle this record exists. For decades it has been lost to the world, but now we can hear it in all its glory – the album that birthed the British Asian dancefloor.”

Recorded in London in 1982, the nine-track album combines producer Kuljit Bhamra’s searing synthesiser melodies and hammering drum machine rhythms with the Punjabi-language folk singing of his classically trained mother, Mohinder Kaur Bhamra. Part early acid house experiment, part north Indian tradition and part disco-funk, the record was a futuristic outlier: the south Asian fusion sounds of bhangra were only just beginning; the mainstream crossover music of the Asian underground was more than a decade away; and the British Asian diaspora were largely relegated to meeting at weddings and community events, rather than at the disco.

Read the feature in the Guardian.

[This piece was published on 25/09/25]