Bhaṅgṛā is a form of music and dance which originated from Punjabi farmers celebrating the arrival if Vaisakhi, a Punjabi Festival. The specific moves of the dance often reflect the movements made by villagers who farmed their land. It is still associated closely with the Punjab regions of India and Pakistan. Bhangra music has evolved over the years but is ingrained into culture globally in movie soundtracks, pop music, and even in talent shows. The genre has two dedicated and well respected award events, the ‘Filmfare Awards’ and the ‘Punjabi Music Awards’ as well as a dedicated national Indian music magazine called ‘Sruti’. Bhangra music became popular in the UK in the 1980s following significant migration of Sikh Punjabis to the UK, appealing mainly to young British Asians – including second and third generation Brits from immigrant families.
Bhangra artists were selling an average of 30000 cassette singles per week in the UK during that decade, yet were not featured in the UK Charts having not been sold through major record labels or record stores. There have been several hugely successful Bhangra artists, whilst some British artists achieved mainstream success with music heavily influenced by Bhangra – these artists include Cornershop and Asian Dub Foundation. If you are already a fan of Bhangra music, or wish to explore it, it is possible to find sites which extensive free downloads available. Featured below are some of the best sites for free Bhangra music…
Download Bhangra Music For Free
The following sites have significant amounts of free and fully legal Bhangra music for download.
Mp3HunGama.com - A significant index of free Bhangra downloads can be found by selecting the appropriate category, which will take you to a huge list of artists listed in alphabetical order. Thousands of free Bhangra downloads and streams to be had here!
Punjabi-Bhangra.com- This site is huge! Find the Bhangra downloads section, well actually that link leads directly to it, and you will find tens of thousands of Bhangra tunes of varied quality to peruse and download. You could probably fill an iPod ten times over with the amount of music hosted on this site. Go and fill your boots!
PunjabiSong.org- Perhaps a bit more, ok well a lot more, limited in selection. This site is clearly a one man amateur project, but the downloads are very high quality and normally album length – often compilation albums which is handy for people who don’t know what they are looking for and want to experience a selection of the music. About 10 free Punjabi downloads per day are added, current offerings