BISHI
Words by w0rmw00d
Life is hard. And it certainly doesn’t have to be. It’s not a law of the universe or the cosmos that there needs to be suffering or pain. Rather, it seems that we humans have created the conditions for our suffering. Concepts like Power, Capitalism, and Greed are ways of creating systems of control, where we ‘other’ humans.
What is one to do in that situation? Do you just give in? Give up? Play the game? Or do you roll up your sleeves and create your own path, your own doors to walk through?
I empathize greatly with anyone who isn’t in a position to build their own way. Sometimes the circumstances of life just don’t allow for this. I’ve been put in that exact situation at various points in my life.
Which is why it’s so important to honor those that are able to craft their own path through the maze of Life. So let’s do that. Let’s talk about BISHI, a trailblazer everyone should become familiar with.
ENTERING THE MAZE
I’m always in awe of people who come from different parts of the world than myself. I’m from San Antonio, Texas. It’s mostly a Latin-American population, specifically Mexican, of which I am a part of. Sure, there’s some white people, some black people as well. But growing up through the 90s-00s, it was pretty homogenous. If you were white, you didn’t live in certain areas of the city, you didn’t cross certain highways, you didn’t eat certain foods or do certain events within the city. And if you were a person of color, it was the same but the opposite direction.
I was super young and just didn’t know any other way of life. I thought everyone ate Barbacoa tacos and drank Big Red on Sundays after church. I thought everyone spoke broken spanish and had a family member who was a mechanic or worked at a body shop. It’s not until you life some life, hopefully getting to leave your home, that you figure out shit is different out there in the world.
When I got to sit down with BISHI, I was reminded of all the perceived differences we have and just how beautiful that is. BISHI, the daughter of Bengali immigrants, was born and raised in London. Her mother, a child prodigy, was an Indian classical singer who got her professional career started at 10. There was always a ‘high end’ understanding of music.
There also was a deep understanding of her context. Because her parents were immigrants, BISHI understood they were marginalized, not a part of the cultural zeitgeist or ‘nexus of power’ happening within the country.
Already, our differences are heightened. It was beautiful hearing these stories, a retelling of her childhood, where music was always a form of PLAY vs anything else.
“My mother is deeply known in Indian/Bengali music and acknowledged as a prodigy when she was young. She could have pushed my sister and I down the path she had, but it was never approached that way. Music was a form of expression, something that was FUN.”
“Because music is such a staple of Bengali and Indian culture, it was always around and always important to me. I remember my mom and I used to make little radio shows on a Casio recorder! I would sing Runa Laila songs when I was 2! Just the fondness of those memories now, shows how much I just deeply enjoyed music and getting to be free and creative at such a young age.”
I was curious to hear how BISHI evolved as she got older, into her teens. I was fortunate to go to Oberlin College in Ohio, known for having a world class conservatory. Sadly, the number of cases of burnout and not getting to make music your life are too many to count.
And here’s where I learned a very important truth about BISHI: at her core, she’s a rebel. A true punk in the music sense, she learned very early on what it takes to survive. DIY over everything.
Having started to play in bands at 14, BISHI was discovered by MINTY, a music and performance group founded by the late, great, Leigh Bowery. It was here that BISHI was first exposed to true countercultures and the importance of creating the space you want and need in a time when no one else would do it for you.
BISHI learned a bit about the music business at this time, the economics, and the rules that came with it. Through Leigh and the underground queer club scene, BISHI had found her people, who looked after her.
“My drag mother, Leigh Bowery, MINTY, all took me in, embraced me and accepted me as I was. I was very aware that I didn’t fit in in broader London as a woman of color, but the queer club scene really taught me the value of personal acceptance and the beauty of counterculture and our differences as people.”
“I was also, like, a young teenager in a VERY adult world, but was well protected from the ‘sex, drugs, and rock n roll lifestyle. I’d stay out late DJing, go home, sleep for a couple hours, then wake up and go to school!”
Through DJing and connecting with others in the underground world, BISHI got her first break for a film premier, where she played the Sitar. It just so happened that Lou Reed and Bootsie Collins were just casually in the crowd (lol).
DJing during this time in London was a big deal. It opened the door and other avenues for BISHI, like getting her first deal to start her own label, learning from Gaurav Muzumdar, a senior disciple of Ravi Shankar, being profiled in all of the lifestyle magazines of the time, playing for the Russian Mafia (who love Outkast BTW), and supporting huge acts like Florence and The Machine.
Unfortunately, some doors remained closed to her. Becoming a true Pop Star was one of them, something that seemed to do with factors outside of her control. Yet, we see again, the grit, the ‘adapt or die’ mindset.
BISHI, always fascinated by software and computers from her days of learning programming in Cubase during her DJ days, forged a new path to walk. She embraced the digital age and the internet, and started fusing art and technology, scoring for film and television on some of the UKs largest networks. The beauty of this marriage between her two selves, the indie/underground BISHI and the tech/experimentalist BISHI was where we turned to next.
BECAUSE THE INTERNET
I was born in 1994. I actually remember what life was like before social media and widespread use of the internet. I remember when we had Dial-up and flip phones and AOL instant messaging. I remember when you wanted an album, you had to go to the store to physically buy it; there was just no other way to get it at the time.
I’ve been working in tech since 2016, mainly in AI. It is absolutely mindblowing and completely unsurprising to see how much things have changed since I was a kid. Naturally then, I was really interested in learning how BISHI approached the internet/digital age coming up as a real artist.
“You know, it was a weird time when the internet started to become a thing. When I was a DJ, our phones were shit, the internet was rubbish, there was no social media, and things were cheap. So we just went out every single night. That’s how I found the other freaks of London I bonded with and created a community around!”
“As an artist, it was actually frowned upon to use things like MySpace and the internet to promote your music. Like it was this icky or less-than thing to do, like you couldn’t make it on a label, so you had to resort to this. Now, obviously the industry has found a way to take that system over and it’s the only way for artists to make a living. It’s truly sad.”
This is where BISHI and I took a second, or actually 10 minutes, to talk about Tyler, The Creator. Well, talk is misleading. We gushed over this man. Tyler is a few years older than me, and yet it feels like we are so FAR APART. I mean, how much life has this man lived in his relatively short time on this earth?
What got us to this point was our mutual agreement that no one has done a better job of using the internet and social media to get their ideas out to the world. I remember when Odd Future started; I saw the uploads, I saw the website, I saw the skating….the shit was so cool. To learn that he was legit like 14 when he started all this stuff is insane.
“There’s just no one like Tyler. Absolutely brilliant, that one. And a huge inspiration for me, seeing this young man do all the things he was trying to do. It helped me realize the importance of social media and the internet of course.”
Like any technology you can think of, the internet has its pros and cons. The obvious positives are the connectivity of the world (like BISHI and I getting to even have a video call in real-time), and the plethora of projects that can be shared and discovered as a direct result of said connectivity. The resources for artists and even the average person wanting to learn a new skill is astounding; the barrier to entry is as low as ever.
However, the other side of the game isn’t great and some argue it’s not all worth it in the end. For artists and creatives, where it was once seen as just something you can do to post your pics to tumblr or sets to YouTube, it is now an absolute must for artists to survive. And the industry knows this (hello Spotify and Instagram). Artists now are expected to make dope shit AND to be the greatest marketers and PR people of all time to get any sort of traction.
The mindset is a lot more around going viral than creating for the inner peace, catharsis or self expression of the past. Exogenous vs Intrinsic. This phenomenon has led to the death of the indie labels and grassroots communities at large, which, if you know anything about the bleeding edge, is a required and necessary component of art to keep things moving, evolving, challenging. The death of local pockets of communities, the ‘freaks’ BISHI found and their places and spaces, is one of the biggest tragedies of the digital age.
That said, BISHI sees it as another opportunity to forge a new path.
AI, POLICY and THE FUTURE
Being in AI for a while now, I’m a bit of a pessimist. I’ve seen these industry-leading companies continue to take advantage of individuals, train models illegally, break every ethical law in the book and make BILLIONS of dollars doing so. Add in my general lack of faith in humanity and some might just call me a bummer. In short, I don’t have much hope that we’ll figure this AI situation out.
In talking to BISHI, however, I was reminded of why I wanted to work in AI in the first place; there’s so many possibilities and so much potential for good.
“I am super nervous about AI and its impact of global policy, individual rights, and jobs. It might be a little fatalist to simply say ‘adapt or die’, but that’s where I think I lie. I’ve always had to adjust, my mentors growing up never were given the space they wanted or needed, they had to create it themselves. And so I see the state of AI in the creative fields in a similar way. We have to learn about the tool, what’s going on under the hood, the people involved at these companies and create the policy, ethics and use-cases that best serve everyone equally.”
One thing we can certainly agree on is that things are going poorly so far:
“I heard some Suno and Udio songs and was like, OK come on you just used Aretha Franklin without any permission! Her estate needs to be involved, they need to be remunerated, to give consent, all that.”
“People are clearly putting in the work to build these extremely powerful AI systems, to train these models that are generating so much wealth and profit. They can just as easily put in the work to protect the artists, their rights, and compensate fairly. This is what I appreciate with Imogen Heap’s Auracles project and what you at Neutone are trying to do.”
AI is just the latest technology in a long history of examples to push humanity forward. What feels different this time, however, is the stratification it is currently creating in the face of its sheer potential to transform ALL lives; it seems we’re falling short of that goal.
What we can hope for, by working with amazing folks like BISHI, is to show that there is another way to think about AI, other use-cases that put artists at the forefront of their digital presence, their image, their rights. It is certainly not very popular, mainly because the economics “don’t math”. All we can do is try though; continue to forge our own path just like BISHI has been doing all her life. If we all band together, maybe, just maybe, we can create the standard; AI that empowers artists and allows them to make a living off their artwork.
What a concept 🙂
—o—
BISHI has recently collaborated with Ilā on their latest album ‘murmur’ and will be releasing a voice model with us here at Neutone. We are honored to be collaborating with her on this incredible project and can’t wait to share it with you. You can follow along with everything BISHI has going on below.