Jasmine and Loveleen Sull just wanted to hear the music of Jodeci or TLC when they went out at night with their friends.
“We used to go out when we were younger and we never really felt like there was any nights catering towards the music that we wanted to hear, which was, at that point, we just wanted to hear R&B everywhere we went,” explains Jasmine Sull.
Besides late ’90s R&B, cousins Jasmine and Loveleen, both originally from North Vancouver, were also big fans of classic rap and hip hop.
One of the venues the pair was frequenting back then was the Met Pub in Gastown.
“A couple of our friends DJed there and they were like, ‘Alright, if you guys want to hear it that bad we’ll just teach you guys how to DJ and then you throw your own party.’ That’s how we started,” says Jasmine.
It was this initial determination that got Jasmine and Loveleen to start up their own DJing project, Lil India.
After building up the project over the last seven years, Lil India has become a mainstay at the City of Bhangra Festival, which this year is a six-day series of events taking place in Surrey and Vancouver.
The festival is dedicated to celebrating bhangra music and dance, Punjabi folk arts and South Asian youth culture.
Lil India’s contribution to the festival will be its Jaloos party at Fortune Sound Club, a musical event that Lil India has been consistently hosting at Fortune for the past three years prior to the Bhangra Festival featuring it as part of its own festival for the first time last year.
“It was really just about bringing everything Indian to people that might not necessarily go to a bhangra party. We wanted to incorporate art, music, food – everything – just the whole culture,” says Jasmine. “It’s just everyone just coming together to enjoy the music.”
The theme of this year’s Bhangra Festival is “intersections,” or, recognizing the diversity and interconnectedness in both culture and community.
For Jasmine and Lil India, getting women involved in music is a priority.
“DJing is such a male-dominated field. It’s really hard for a female to break through,” says Jasmine. “We just want to put them at the forefront.”
At last year’s Bhangra Festival, the Jaloos event featured all-female talent, including other female DJs, a rapper, and female-created art installations. “That’s really important to us,” Jasmine explains.
These days, Jasmine and Loveleen’s DJing has moved past spinning only R&B and hip hop. Instead, the pair opts for a sound that fuses those genres with bhangra music, an upbeat style of music commonly associated with folk-dance and Punjabi music.
“We didn’t have any musical training really,” Jasmine says. “Once we started learning how to DJ it was really just about our ear. Just knowing what sounds good and also knowing how to feel a room out when you’re playing.”
This year’s Jaloos – City of Bhangra Festival edition will feature an all-gals roster of guests that includes Baltimore’s Beya Likhari and San Diego’s Sabrina. Accompanying the music will be an art show curated by the dontdoze collective and Monica Cheema.
When asked what Lil India looks out for when they’re trying to suss out the vibe of a room during a DJ set, Jasmine says the key is to determine what people are responding to.
“If people are not dancing that’s usually a big one,” Jasmine says with a laugh.
Lil India present Jaloos City of Bhangra Edition at Fortune Sound Club, Friday, June 16, 10pm. Tickets available at myshowpass.com/jaloos-city-of-bhangra-edition. For more information visit vibc.org/city_of_bhangra_festival.
