Nitin Sawhney

Few artists have utilised their cross-cultural British and Asian roots as effectively as Nitin Sawhney - writer, musician, producer, DJ, film composer and political being. As a child in Rochester, Kent in the south east of England, he learned to play various instruments, including piano, flamenco guitar, tabla and sitar before studying law at Liverpool University. However, he dropped out without completing the course, sharing his time between music and writing and teaming up with Sanjeev Bhaskar to form The Secret Asians, who went on to create hit comedy TV show Goodness Gracious Me. Sawhney launched his solo career in 1993 with the album Spirit Dance, but his breakthrough came six years later with the thematic multi-cultural album Beyond Skin, promoting a pacifist anti-nuclear message. Nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, it established Sawhney as one of the UK's most influential British Asians. He subsequently won a MOBO Award for his 2001 album Prophesy and went on to become a respected composer of film and TV scores, drawing on his classical music studies. He also produced the music for Ninja Theory video games, collaborated with Paul McCartney on the song My Soul and re-mixed a variety of artists; including Sting, Natacha Atlas, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Jeff Beck and Andrew Lloyd Webber.