{"id":39604,"date":"2016-04-12T16:31:58","date_gmt":"2016-04-12T21:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=39604"},"modified":"2016-04-13T09:18:12","modified_gmt":"2016-04-13T14:18:12","slug":"local-band-blends-east-and-west-to-get-people-dancing-and-talking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/local-band-blends-east-and-west-to-get-people-dancing-and-talking\/","title":{"rendered":"Local band blends east and west to get people dancing and talking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Nikita Mandhani<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"dropcap\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.funkadesi.com\/home\/\">FunkaDesi<\/a> is a Chicago-based band that represents diverse ethnic communities through its members, music and fan base. The band is a six-time winner of the Chicago Music Awards and combines Indian music with western trends.<\/p>\n<p>[vimeo 162015929 w=474]<\/p>\n<div class=\"featurecaption\">A FunkaDesi performance uses music to enhance deeper conversations about unity and diversity. (Nikita Mandhani\/Medill)<\/div>\n<p>Rahul Sharma founded FunkaDesi twenty years ago. Sharma was born to Indian parents in the U.S. shortly after they\u00a0emigrated from Kenya. In an effort to create a platform for his Indian-American identity through music, he came up with the concept of forming a multi-ethnic, multi-racial group of musicians.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->For Sharma, a psychologist by profession, FunkaDesi is an \u201cexperiment in trying to embrace each other\u2019s cultural backgrounds and traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"featurecaption\">Photo on top: Members of FunkaDesi perform at a concert in the Promontory, Hyde Park. (Nikita Mandhani\/Medill)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Nikita Mandhani FunkaDesi is a Chicago-based band that represents diverse ethnic communities through its members, music and fan base. The band is a six-time winner of the Chicago Music Awards and combines Indian music with western trends. [vimeo 162015929 w=474] A FunkaDesi performance uses music to enhance deeper conversations about unity and diversity. (Nikita [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":39658,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,30,675],"tags":[2566,2563,2565,61,892,2562,2564,887],"class_list":["post-39604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-public-affairs","category-social-justice","tag-american","tag-band","tag-caribbean","tag-chicago","tag-concert","tag-funkadesi","tag-indian","tag-music"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Local band blends east and west to get people dancing and talking - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/local-band-blends-east-and-west-to-get-people-dancing-and-talking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Local band blends east and west to get people dancing and talking - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Nikita Mandhani FunkaDesi is a Chicago-based band that represents diverse ethnic communities through its members, music and fan base. The band is a six-time winner of the Chicago Music Awards and combines Indian music with western trends. [vimeo 162015929 w=474] A FunkaDesi performance uses music to enhance deeper conversations about unity and diversity. 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