I went along to a club run by JOI at the Bass Clef in Hoxton Square, in 1992. It was a packed night, mainly white hippie types with a sprinkling of Bangladeshi teenagers. There was a really friendly atmosphere and the music was excitingly new, with all kinds of Asian and non-Asian references I could relate to. Beats, breaks and tablas, bits of rap, Indian female vocal samples, swirling basslines, very ‘electronic’ and danceable. It was similar to what Nation was sending me but a little happier sounding.

Nation had started to hold one-off parties and club nights. There were the Global Sweatbox sessions at the Bass Clef, where I also played nervously a few times. I met Simon Underwood who used to be the 1980’s chart-busting band, PIGBAG. He went on to work for Nation and to manage HUSTLERS HC, the UK’s first Sikh rap outfit. He’d had a long-tern interest in world music and had been on the WOMAD circuit for years. Before joining Nation in 1993, Simon organised a huge Asian music event in Austria for the Vienna Festival. Bhangra bands like ACHANAK performed, as well as top bhangra DJs, XECUTIVE SOUNDS. TALVIN SINGH also did a set. But, the highlight was the final evening with live performances from FUN-DA-MENTAL, HUSTLERS HC and TRANSGLOBAL UNDERGROUND with NATACHA ATLAS. As I waited in the wings to do my DJ set, the opening chords of Transglobal’s ‘TEMPLEHEAD’ piped through the speakers and the stage was awash with colour, smoke and inexplicable warmth I hadn’t experienced before. I was hooked!

As time went on, I began to hear about tabla player Talvin Singh in the press, and finally met him in 1993 while judging at the ASIAN DJ AWARDS. At the Wag Club in London, hundreds of Asian lads – mainly dressed in hip-hop style clothing: baggy jeans, baseball caps, and plenty of attitude to boot – were gathered for this event. In the corner, I spotted a young man who stood out like a sore thumb – frilled shirt gathered in a ruff at the neck, velvet jacket and a mass of wavy hair falling over his forehead. It was Talvin.

A month later I bumped into my old photography tutor, Aniruddha Das, at a LOOP GURU gig. We met up at his music studio a few weeks later and he played me some tracks that he and a friend had been working on – kind of similar to what I’d been hearing through Nation. He told me he didn’t want to sign to a record label. Around his studio were tones of posters of Fun-Da-Mental… I put him in touch with Simon at Nation. He went on to form ASIAN DUB FOUNDATION and, of course, subsequently signed to Nation, Virgin France and (temporarily) London Records.

While discussing the merits of the latest APACHE INDIAN record with HEAVYWEIGHT MEDIA employee Shabs, we got talking about the general state of affairs in the British music industry, and shared a common view that there were very limited opportunities for Asian artists. A year later, Shabs had set up his own PR company called MEDIA VILLAGE, and called to say he wanted to set up a label. Would I join him? In 1994, OUTCASTE RECORDS was born.

The name, a pun on the ‘caste’ system, was devised to reflect the predicament of being an outsider. The logo, based on the standard ‘no entry’ road signs in the UK, followed the same principle. Our mission was first to provide a new home for British Asian artists whose music reflected their British and Asian roots equally. Secondly, we wanted to send out a new music message to the mainstream audience, which seemed to be largely ignoring the fact that Asians could even be musical at all. We felt that if this new music could be accessible to non-Asians, maybe, just maybe, it would provide a stepping-stone to other, deeper Asian music like bhangra, Bollywood or Indian classical.

My job was to find the talent. Where were these British Asian music people? We put the word out through our press contacts and an extensive database. We also began the monthly Outcaste club night to showcase the music and bring in new artists. Eventually people started to come through. While I was DJing at Bombay Jungle, a young guy called Easy Mo kept badgering me with vinyls he’d created in his Hackney bedroom – he eventually became one half of Badmarsh and Shri.

We looked at the other people who were already ‘around’: EARTHRIBE, Joi, Talvin Singh, all of whom we came close to signing. While DJing at a world music conference in Berlin, the manager of a new musician/composer (who I’d heard of but not seen) approached me. Some weeks later, Shabs and I went to his bedroom studio and promptly signed him. And so, NITIN SAWHNEY became our first ‘big’ artist.