All About Bally Sagoo

Birmingham, England
Bally Sagoo (born Baljit Singh Sagoo) is a British Asian musician and DJ who was born in Ranjit Nagar, Delhi, India but grew up in Birmingham, England, in a predominantly Black neighborhood, influenced by disco, rap and motown music. He gained success as a DJ in the club scene and broke into music by revamping old bollywood hits and fusing them with hip hop.


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Bally Sagoo has acquired many designations, to mention a few, “Godfather of Bhangra”; “The mix-master”; “One of UK’s top 10 Asian Success Stories”. It’s taken a lot for Sagoo to acquire these titles and his story starts back in the 1980’s when he felt there was no funky Indian music. Living in the ghetto areas of Birmingham UK, he soon got a taste for black music. Motown, reggae and soul were the type of music he wanted to hear. Sagoo began a personal crusade to fill the void. He knew if he succeeded he would make his mark in history….

Stealing records from his father’s music store by night and replacing them in the morning, he would experiment by fusing traditional Indian music with western beats. But the bills still had to be paid, so by day, he held a full time job as a sales assistant, and by night he was producing in his bedroom, which he called “Currywood Studios”. Sagoo knew he was onto something big.
Bally’s concerted efforts bore its’ first fruits in 1989 when a local Indian record label, Oriental Star Agency gave him his first break. He remixed a track called “Hey Jamalo” which became an instant success. It was here that Sagoo was accredited of dragging Indian music into the 21st century. His popularity on the Indian music scene was growing fast. His love for Dj-ing and music forced him to follow his dream and he became a full time music producer. Bally went onto produce many hit albums, his innovative and bona fide musical style has achieved many awards including Gold and Triple Platinum albums all fighting for space on his walls.

In 1992, Sagoo went onto produce the groundbreaking album “Magic Touch” featuring the legendary voice of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. This collaboration was a huge success, giving Nusrat an acceptance with the younger generation (equivocal to the youngsters of today listening to Pavarotti) and putting Bally Sagoo’s name on the lips of both the young and old.

With the Indian music industry safely in his hands, he set out to cross over into the mainstream, by signing to Sony Music in 1994. Bally came up with the new concept of revitalising classic Bollywood film songs. Appropriately, titled “Bollywood Flashback”, this album became one of the biggest sellers worldwide. A single off the album, “Chura Liya” became the first Indian song to be play listed on Radio One.

Sagoo went on to produce “Rising from the East”, an emotional, innovative album showing Bally’s skill as a writer and producer. The album smashed through the barriers of race and culture, the single “Dil Cheez’ reached No.12 in t


Bally Sagoo (born Baljit Singh Sagoo) is a British Asian musician and DJ who was born in Ranjit Nagar, Delhi, India, but grew up in Birmingham, England, in a predominantly Black neighbourhood, influenced by disco, rap and Motown music. In an interview “Re-mixing Identities: “Off” The Turn-Table,” Bally said:

“Indian music was Indian music. So I just left that side of things and I moved into the Western side of things and I was getting into English and American music… I was a typical example of someone who didn’t know what Asian people were about. I was too much into the Western society business. My friends were mainly black and I didn’t have many Asian mates because of, talking fifteen years ago you know, we didn’t have funky Asian music… Then all of a sudden things just changed. I just got so much into it and my mates were like ‘my god Bally Sagoo’s doing Indian music.’”

He gained success as a DJ in the club scene and broke into music by revamping old Bollywood hits and fusing them with hip hop. He is widely credited as one of the original pioneers of what is now modern Indian music, and for triggering the explosion of modern Bhangra pop music (although his music was and is more a fusion of Western dance and hip hop with existing Indian music). This is specifically seen in his 1994 album Bollywood Flashback, followed up with Rising From The East in 1996. Bally runs a production company named Ishq Records that manages several artistes like Bohemia and Gunjan. He has worked twice with the Pakistani pop singer Hadiqa Kiyani.

On an international scale, his most famous work features prominently in Gurinder Chadha’s film Bend It Like Beckham and upcoming film It’s a Wonderful Afterlife. He worked together with Amitabh Bachchan for a musical rendition of Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s poetry and produced Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s album Magic Touch.

In 2007 he starred in the Punjabi film Sajna ve Sajna.