LONDON: The London Fire Brigade has unleashed a new bhangra song to educate British Asians about fire safety - and it is setting the desi top ten on fire. The song has been written and sung by two firemen who produce music in their spare time.
Harvey Sahota, a fire community safety officer and Stephen-Remell Coleman, a fireman, produced the bhangra-rap song. "The Asian community like to use cooking oil, fireworks and candles for Diwali or Eid. It puts them at higher risk," said 30-year-old Sahota.
Coleman, who is a firefighter on Wimbledon Fire Stations Red Watch, is also a rap artist who performs under the name of Controversy. Sometime back he released a professionally produced video, Got Mine Got Yours that aimed its message about how smoke alarms save lives at young urban audience. It was a massive success and received national media coverage and over 85,000 hits on Youtube.
Reaching the ethnic minorities was more difficult hence he teamed up with Sahota, who produces Asian music in his spare time to produce the bhangra-rap version of the song. The new Got Mine Got Yours? uses Indian instruments like dholaks and dhols. The track begins with Coleman saying Hello in three different Asian languages - Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi and features Indian vocal chants.
The accompanying video is shot on the streets of Southall - the heart of one of the UKs largest Asian communities known as Little India - and at Southall Fire Station. It features Punjabi Bhangra dancers, and members of the public singing along to the songs chorus. The lyrics warn people not to be complacent about accidental fires happening and urge them to put up a fire alarm.
The song has already become a regular on Asian radio and television networks. Seeing its success the London Fire Brigade is thinking of releasing the rap song, DVD in national music stores and to allow downloads from various music websites. The duo claim they have received emails from fire services in New York, Amsterdam and Canada to help them with a similar campaign. Source : DNA
