Rishi Rich

The streets of Southall are alive with the sound of music…low slung, drop top BMW's cruise by blasting hard core rap, uk garage, R'n'B and bhangra! The kids playing out know all the words to every song, be it Busta Rhymes, Ashanti or Punjabi MC. In this suburban corner of West London sitting concentrating hard behind the desks is producer Rishi Rich, the man behind smash hit singles from Mis-teeq and Craig David, with further tracks due this year for Mary J Blige, Sugababes, Liberty X, Ricky Martin and Britney Spears. Rishi has established himself as a genuinely talented and innovative producer due to his unique musical versatility. Being able to create authentic traditional Asian music, while also producing underground hip-hop beats for leading uk rappers Estelle and Fallacy, and smoove R'n'B/pop mainstream cuts has established Rishi as a cutting edge producer. 2003 see's a first time collaboration between Rishi, Punjabi vocalist Juggy D and singer/rapper Jay Sean, who are collectively releasing their single 'Dance With You' as the Rishi Rich Project. Rishi was born and brought up in London, learning to play classical Indian instruments as a young child. A job as a runner in a recording studio followed at the tender age of eleven, and at just thirteen Rishi hooked up with a friend, and they signed their first record deal under the production moniker '2 Kool'. While Rishi enjoyed working on traditional Asian music, which could be heard on his first five album releases, he was keen to further develop his skills and start producing a variety of beats and sounds, as a way to incorporate his love for R'n'B, hip-hop, ragga and garage music. Rishi co-produced no less that 10! Asian music albums before working on his first solo album 'Simply Rich', which debuted at no. 1 in the Asian pop charts in October 2002, and was still in the top 5 six months later. On his debut album he was able to fully showcase his creative talents and ability to fuse R'n'B, ragga and bhangra. While working on this project Rishi met Punjabi vocalist Juggy D, who was just starting to blow up on the uk Bhangra scene. Born and bred in Southall Juggy has been performing since the age of 14, when he won a talent contest judged by Punjabi superstar Channi. Winning the competition inspired Juggy to believe in his dream to become a successful British born traditional Punjabi singer. Juggy performed during frequent visits back to his parents' native Punjab, and India, during his late teens, and began to establish himself as a genuine British born Asian vocal talent. Rishi had heard some of Juggy's tracks, so when he began working on his debut album 'Simply Rich' he asked Juggy to collaborate on the track 'Nahin Jeenaa'. The result.….no. 1 in the Bhangra charts for 6 weeks! It has been a meteroic rise for Juggy in a very short space of time. Following this success, Juggy and Rishi were keen to work on another track together, but one with a more R'n'B vibe, enter Jay Sean, an R'n'B singer and rapper. Jay Sean is a twenty two year old British born Asian from Hounslow who has just left medical school to persue a career in music. Much to his parents dismay, the only Doctor Jay Sean had a desire to work with at this point was Dr Dre. Like his pals Juggy and Rishi, Jay's induction into music started in his early teens. He grew up listening to a diverse range of artists from traditional Bollywood singers, to R'n'B/soul singers such as Donnell Jones, Eric Benet, Boyz II Men and Musiq Soulchild. Jay also developed an intense passion for rap, becoming more and more inspired by the lyrical skills of Notorious B.I.G., Fu-shnickens, Treach (Naughty by Nature), Grand Puba (Brand Nubians) and Mobb Deep to name but a few. At fifteen Jay became one half of the hip-hop duo 'Compulsive Disorder', developing his double time rap skills, while working hard on his writing style. In his bedroom he began to amass cupboards full of A5 notepads full of lyrics and song compositions, countless tales with his distinctive 'British wit' which paint a very amusing picture of his life experiences so far. Jay's soulful vocals and song writing ability began to come to the attention of music industry insiders, and one of his demo's ended up finding it's way to Rishi Rich's studio. Rishi and Juggy were looking for a soulful R'n'B male singer/songwriter to help create their new single, fusing R'n'B and Punjabi at its best. Jay was invited down to the studio to collaborate on the track, and 'Nachna Tere Naal (Dance With You)' was the end result. With industry buzz around the single reaching fever pitch, the Rishi Rich project eagerly anticipate the release of their debut single 'Dance With You' on September 1st, to be released via the new Virgin Records label, set up by the team behind Relentless Records. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.