Mirissa Neff

Mirissa Neff is a journalist, art director and producer. Through her work for PBS's "Sound Tracks: Music Without Borders" and "Quick Hits," she tells stories about our world through the music we love.

A Desi Party Grows in Brooklyn

October 3, 2012 ⋅ Post a comment

The crowd at Desilicious (Photo: Mirissa Neff)

Earlier during the summer I made my way to Dekalb Market, a quasi pop-up market on the edge of downtown Brooklyn. The market’s infrastructure consists of colorful shipping containers, stacked on top of one another, housing shops and eateries … imagine a life-size Lego-land for Brooklyn’s stylish epicurean set. That eve the market hosted the first outdoor edition of Desilicious, a gay-friendly club night that celebrates South Asian culture and music.

The party started about ten years ago in a small club in Chelsea. According to founder Atif Toor, Desilicious’ organizers and DJs were club kids who came together with the purpose of integrating Bollywood and pop music with house music. Part of the impetus to create the event came from a sense of need in the wake of 9/11. Says Toor, “It was a time when people were feeling a little bit marginalized and not necessarily safe in their community, so it was moment to come together and celebrate being who you are.”

The Dekalb edition of Desilicious coincided with the 65th anniversary of Pakistan and India’s independence, as well as the birthday of late Pakistani pop idol Nazia Hassan. While DJ-ing the opening set, Toor made sure to work in some of Hassan’s tracks, saying “She really brought pop music into Pakistan with this one song called “Disco Deewane” that kind of set the country on fire.”

After Toor, resident DJ Ashu Rai took over the decks. While the sun was still out at the main ones parking on the dance floor were under the age of five, but as darkness fell the older club kids showed up en masse. Several circles of dancers opened up under the glow of a Bollywood film being projected onto a white shipping container. Ashu Rai kept the party going and though she keeps her sets varied, she imparted five songs that she can “always depend upon to pack the dance floor.”

DJ Ashu Rai’s Top 5 Desilicious Songs
A remixed version of Jawani Janeman - from the movie “Namak Halaal”