Reggae isn’t just sound; it’s a movement, a force that brings people together in the streets. It’s about transgressing, healing and confronting colonial trauma through the beat.
Delhi Sultanate, also known as Taru Dalmia, is on a mission to bring the transformative power of reggae music to remote corners of India, particularly through his custom-built Bass Foundation Roots (BFR) Sound System.
BFR Sound System has been selected as one of the five projects globally, Lagos, Taipei, Miami, and Sheffield, to receive support for grassroots music and cultural initiatives by Studio Monkey Shoulder and Worldwide FM, an award-winning radio station. He is set to host The Big Bang Fest 2024, a two-day celebration (October 26-27) of sound system culture in Assam’s tribal heartlands.
This festival not only showcases alternative lifestyles but also seeks to create community and, in turn, facilitate healing through music. For Delhi Sultanate, this journey is part of a greater vision: using reggae to push back against still prevailing colonial ideas of a homogenous culture and create spaces that promote inclusivity and a heterogeneous cultural exchange.
A community practice
Born in Germany to Indian parents in 1981, Delhi Sultanate’s introduction to reggae came during his teenage years as an immigrant. For him, reggae was a cultural anchor.
“As a kid, I got into reggae through pirate radio stations. We mixed sounds and shared them with each other. Reggae’s connection to Black consciousness gave me a sense of belonging as a Brown kid.” For him, it was a way to confront racist systems and an otherness he was made conscious of.
Delhi Sultanate’s sound practice is about connecting people in a shared experience. He emphasises that this music will not necessarily have the same impact if one listened to it individually through earphones.
“Reggae is made for listening together in the streets,” he explains. Reggae, he tells, is not limited to the popular spiritual and transcendental sounds of Bob Marley but is a music that places the movement, the sensuous, and the warrior-like movement of bodies at the centre. Even the breakdancing culture and street martial arts have their roots in dancehall music, a sparse version of reggae."
"At a Delhi Sultanate show, there is a desk with his collection of vinyl records and two turntables placed around on a box that reads ‘This Machine Kills Fascists’. When he plays his music, the audience looking towards his set dances and grooves in tandem with each other. The roots of reggae are deeply political. Delhi Sultanate says: “It evolved from the slave dances in Jamaica, born out of the need to transgress trauma and it forms an alternative basis of community through music and dance. It gave people cultural confidence and built resilience.”
The power of sound
For him, sound is not something passive — it’s an active force that works on and within the body. “In reggae, bass is the primary melodic element,” he says. “Bass frequencies have a powerful effect on the body. The sound itself, sometimes interspersed with sirens or deconstructed beats, conveys resistance. The bassline expresses not only rage against oppressive systems but also love for one another.”
Words carry meaning, but sound, too, is a powerful vehicle for emotion and intention. “Our sound isn’t just to be heard—it’s to be felt. That’s why I say we don’t bring people into sound; we bring sound into people. You can feel the music’s power in your body. It’s therapeutic, and it’s something the world needs right now.”
His sound system, BFR, plays a crucial role in this mission. As one-of-a-kind Jamaican-style sound systems in India, it allows him to recreate the immersive experience of reggae as it was meant to be felt. He wants to create spaces where people can come together and resist the commodification of culture. “Owning our own sound system lets us control how we present the music. We’re not dependent on clubs or corporate venues. We can bring our shows to places where people need it most — where they can feel the full emotional and physical impact of the sound. Right now, there’s a lot of fear and polarisation in the world, and we need places where we can nourish each other. Reggae, because it sits outside the corporate mainstream and doesn’t fit into trending brand identities, allows us to create these safe spaces.”
Delhi to Assam: new pathways
This October, Delhi Sultanate will drive his sound system from Delhi to the remote jungles of Assam hosting ‘The Big Bang Fest 2024’. The festival will combine sound system culture with local folk traditions, bringing together diverse musical forms and communities in a powerful cross-cultural exchange. Daniel Langthasa, a musician from the Dimasa tribe, is helping to organise the event. They are hosting it in Nanadisa Village, deep in the jungle, to showcase the richness of indigenous cultures and reconnect with sustainable ways of living that are getting subsumed in dominant corporate capitalist structures, similar to urban ways of living.
The festival will launch with a two-day event at Crashpad in Mangar Village, just outside Delhi, on October 12-13. The first day will feature BFR Sound System’s trademark deep basslines, featuring Chie Nishikori on trombone and Ras Man Man on keys, creating a fully immersive sound experience. The second day will include house music performances by duo Sanchit Ahuja from the Warehouse Music crew and Hamza Rahimtula from Wind Horse Records. House music, which has deep roots in the gay Black people’s dancing subculture in New York, makes the duo a natural ally in this celebration of resistance and cultural diversity. The event will also feature special guest DJ Gilles Peterson, a globally recognised figure in the music industry and co-founder of the global music-radio platform Worldwide FM. “We’ve always operated on the fringes of the music industry,” says Delhi Sultanate. “This two-day analogue music celebration in Delhi is a way to bring people together in a sonicscape, away from the city’s commercialism and into a more grounded, natural environment.”
The Assam edition of the festival in Nanadisa, will blend reggae, dub, and traditional tribal music. For Delhi Sultanate, this festival represents the culmination of years of work, building a bridge between reggae’s roots and India’s diverse cultural landscape. “You never forget your first encounter with a reggae sound system,” he reflects. With ‘The Big Bang Fest 2024’, Delhi Sultanate is creating more than just a music event — it’s a movement, a way of rethinking how we connect with each other through sound. The world is at a crossroads, with people seeking alternatives in music, culture, and politics. Reggae and sound system culture provide that alternative. In Assam, with the pulse of BFR Sound System’s basslines reverberating through the jungle, this vision of community and resistance will come to life. Beyond music, it’s a matter of culture — a way to reimagine the future through sound and movement.
Tickets on thebigbangfestival.com. For details on the cultural gathering in Mangar, visit @aqi.family.
This article is written by Prachi Satrawal