Diwali may be the Hindu festival of lights, but it will be celebrated with a cavalcade of sound in Hong Kong this year with performances by two of India's biggest pop acts.
The Bombay Rockers start off the celebrations in Cyberport's Ocean View Arena and Sea View Terrace on Saturday, followed by Jay Sean, at the Viceroy and DV8, in Wan Chai, on October 21.
Both acts have had international success with distinctly non-Bollywood, Indo-western hybrid hits.
"Part of the reason for the success of my music is because it's not anything like what's coming out of the musical films in India," says Sean. "I didn't want to repeat any of that because many in my generation of British-born Indians couldn't relate 100 per cent to it. We had to have our own sound that was a cocktail of cultures - just like we are.
"I grew up listening to rap and hip hop, and I was writing music when I was 13. My point of view was different. We spoke English at home. The only time I spoke Punjabi was [with] my grandparents, but I couldn't hold an entire conversation in Punjabi," says Sean, who is Sikh by birth and wears his traditional, trademark kara (silver bracelet) at all times.
"Like other Indian kids living in England, US or Canada, they hold on to their roots, but they're very much Western-ised. My music has that flavour they can relate to, especially since it has never been done before, not by a young Indian person. I found my niche and it's grown."
Sean, 26, is the most successful Asian R&B performer to have hit the charts in India and UK. His stage name comes from the Indian word shaan, or "pride". He was born Kamaljit Jhooti in Southhall, London, and has never lived in India. Bollywood movies were a part of his upbringing, but he noticed that Indian singers struggled to succeed internationally.
"When Indian singers try to get into the western market, from the listener's point of view, they don't quite sound authentic," he says.
"It would be like me singing in Spanish or something - the accent wouldn't be right, the tone wouldn't be quite right. But I was born and brought up in London and my music reflects that,"
As Sean fuses British and Indian influences, the Bombay Rockers bring a Scandinavian approach to the sounds of the subcontinent. Thomas Sardorf and Navtej Singh Rehal, both 25, created Bombay Rockers three years ago in Denmark and have won a faithful following from Kolding to Calcutta.
"I was brought up mostly outside India, but I did live in Delhi for about a year," Rehal says. "Culturally, of course, there's a fusion of the east and west, which is reflected in our music."
The Bombay Rockers have hit the big time with singles such as Ari Ari and Rock Tha Party, a Hindi-English song that entered the top 10 in the charts in India and Britain. Their debut album, Introducing, has gone platinum in India, with sales of more than 100,000.
"Ari Ari was the first track we made," says Sardorf. "We started making tracks with a bhangra vibe and it worked out well. The production was more pop-R&B, and the mix of Indian and English vocals gave us an opportunity to vary it. The reason it's done so well everywhere, starting off in Denmark and then racing across Asia, is that it still has an Indian heart."
The Bombay Rockers first went on stage in July 2003, at the Roskilde Festival, in front of 20,000 people. A month later, they were performing in Denmark's Images of Asia festival, and other gigs nation-wide. Ari Ari was only a lukewarm success on its release, but the impact of Rock Tha Party gave the duo new life and renewed interest in their previous work. Their third single, Wild Rose, was released in more than 32 countries last year.
Sean also realises that his music no longer appeals only to the Southeast Asian market.
"I've toured all around Asia - Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan - but this is my first visit to Hong kong, so I'm really excited about coming over and spending about a week there," he says. "Touring around has opened my eyes to the fact that the music isn't just for the desi [Indian/Southeast Asian] community. It's going over well across the board. My concerts always have a mixed crowd because hip hop and R&B don't belong just to one section of society."
Sean's show will reflect his diverse musical tastes. "I grew up listening to a lot of hip hop and soul: Naughty by Nature, Lords of the Underground, Stevie Wonder, Boyz to Men, Michael Jackson," he says. "I was aware of bhangra, but I was also aware that I couldn't do that exactly the way it should be done because it wasn't authentic from my perspective. I didn't have the same life experiences as those brought up in Punjab, obviously, so I never tried to recreate that - but the essence of that is there, somewhere."
Although Sean has kept his distance from Bollywood, he enticed Indian film star Bipasha Basu to appear in a music video that won an Asian Music Award for best video in Britain. "My record company asked who we'd like in the video and Bipasha Basu was the upcoming young actress at the time. For those who didn't know who she was, it didn't matter, because she's very, very beautiful and for those who did, they could instantly connect. Now, she's the hottest actress in Bollywood. Even the local [British] tabloids list her as the hottest babe."
Sean doesn't rule out working with a film studio. "There have been some offers, but none have been any good," he says. "They do come up with some strange ideas in Mumbai, don't they?"
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