专辑简介

Aki Kumar is no stranger to living double lives. The now professional harmonica player grew up in Mumbai, India and studied traditional Hindustani music at the age of 9 years old. When he was 18 (circ. 1998), he moved to California to attend San Jose State University and began hanging out at underground blues clubs. After college, he worked as a software engineer at a major Silicon Valley tech company for 11 years, and by night, he performed Chicago blues in local venues. 2016 marks a milestone for Aki as he’s spent half his life in India and half in the United States. His debt album for Little Village, Aki Goes To Bollywood, is a true representation of his musical DNA -- classic 1950s/60s Bollywood and down-home American blues.

Though some instrumental albums and DJs have attempted to rearrange Bollywood music mixed with other genres, never before has an Indian blues musician so triumphantly recorded songs by the film industry’s biggest stars such as Mohammad Rafi, Kishore Kumar, R.D. Burman, and S.D. Burman. Aki Kumar notes, “I realized that many of the Indian songs I loved had, in fact, been influenced by American blues music and I wanted to bring them together.” Aki Goes To Bollywood blends sitars with Delta blues jams, Hindi vocals with ferocious harp playing. Aki has single-handedly created “Mumbai Meets Muddy,” his own blues movement. For the album’s cover, Aki emulates his childhood hero and mega-star, Amitabh Bachchan.