r-H

Presented a DJ demo workshop, DRM & New Music Technology, Role of DJ as Producer/Remixer at the Dashanzi International Art Festival 2006, Beijing, China.

Performed at Peter Gabriel's WOMAD 2005 (2 hour DJ set), presenting an eclectix mix of world music with billboard hits to a world audience, at Singapore's Fort Canning Park.

WINNER of 2 Awards at the 2004 International Song Writing Competition :: 2nd Place, Electronic Cat. for the song "SUSHI" :: Honorable Mention, Electronic Cat. for the song "CRACK"

Growing up in Singapore, Rajesh Hardwani (a.k.a. r-H) fed himself musically on everything from funk and soul, to blues and hip-hop. This wide variety of influences would later play a vital role in his work as a musician, though he eventually expanded his creative palette even further to include electronica, big beat, drum and bass, jazz, and much more. It’s no surprise that some people find it difficult to classify his style. However, what may come as a surprise is how easily r-H takes these countless influences and meshes them together into a remarkably cohesive and wildly infectious sound that is all his own.

r-H got his start as a DJ back in the 80s, though he soon found himself spending more time at the microphone than at the decks. Soon he was writing his own rap songs, which he would later perform while serving as MC at different events. “This emboldened me to record and produce my own album,” he recalls. But although r-H had the songs, he didn’t have the beats to support them, and with the cost of digital music gear being much higher back then, he couldn’t afford the equipment to create the beats he needed. He also had a mandatory stint of military service on the horizon, and he quickly realized that his musical aspirations would have to be put on hold.

But his time with the military proved to be a blessing of sorts, because it was in boot camp that he met Anthony P V, who would later serve as the sound engineer on r-H’s debut rap album, Ethnic Jam, which r-H began working on in 1994. The album was released two years later, and stood out from other rap albums because of the way the raps were fused with Indian percussion. Aside from the help of Anthony P V, the creation of the album was largely a one-man show, with r-H writing, composing, producing, designing, and marketing the album himself, making it a tremendous learning experience for the young musician.

“It was one of my most trying moments,” says r-H of the album’s creation, “but I loved every minute of it. The bulk of my salary went into recording costs and printing the CDs. It was scary. I did not know, at times, what I was doing. I knew very well that I wasn’t going to make up for all of the expenses. This is Singapore, and local music productions don’t do that well.” But financial success was not the immediate goal. More important than that, r-H was still searching for his musical voice, and the hard work he put into his debut album helped him find it.

Instead of completing his first rap album and being inspired to begin work on another, r-H completed his first rap album and decided to take a different path, one that led toward working as a producer and remixer. “I came out focused and confident,” recalls r-H of completing his debut album, “and I learned how to use digital audio workstations and everything else about digital technology for the music and recording industry. I learned how to prepare press releases for various industries and what were the best times to send them out. I learned about the process behind the manufacturing of CDs, and the buying and selling policies at record stores. You can not learn this at school. You need to be hands-on with some element of pressure to succeed in this sort of environment. For me, finance was the pressure.”

But the financial pressure that forced him to learn all angles of the music industry also helped his creative side take major strides forward, and all of the new knowledge he accumulated helped develop many of the strategies he has been refining and perfecting ever since. These days, r-H uses handheld digital recorders to collect sound samples, and digital audio workstations to edit and fine-tune them. When he is satisfied, he blends the resulting sounds with Asian instrumentation and weaves a theme of hip-hop, jazz, or drum and bass through the entire piece.

An avid traveler, r-H takes his digital gear with him wherever he goes in order to record any sights and sounds that may become part of or inspiration for future audio and visual creations. This helps explain some of the remarkable diversity of r-H’s music, which includes elements of Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Malaysian, and Arabian cultures. The diversity is obvious not just from track to track or from one album to the next, but even within the course of a single song. When asked what makes his style unique, r-H answers, “Various genres and sounds from different lands in one track. I can