The Ska Vengers : XX Rated

How India’s leading ska / reggae band interpreted jail encounters and Modi-era malaise on their biting sophomore record.

- Nabeela Shaikh

“I THINK I SPEND A LOT OF TIME hanging around with the dregs of society,” says Stefan Kaye. “Some people may think that these individuals have noble professions, but they’re the worst kind of morally bankrupt, parasitic fuckwits.” The British-born keyboardist/percussionist for The Ska Vengers holds a special caustic contempt for most servants of the law ever since he ran into visa violation trouble four and a half years ago. It’s the same legal tangle that’s led the 38 year old to despise “most lawyers, every single police officer, magistrates, civil servants.” It’s also the same legal tangle that landed him in Tihar’s jail No. 4 for three weeks in 2011. More recently, it tossed Kaye back in court just hours before the Delhi ska/reggae band launched their second album XX (pronounced “double cross”) last month. But the gig went off smoothly; the six-member band — also comprising vocalists Taru Dalmia aka Delhi Sultanate and Samara Chopra aka Begum X, guitarist Chaitanya ‘Chazz’ Bhalla, drummer Nikhil Vasudevan and bassist Tony Guinard — weren’t the least bit phased from kicking up a rumpus.

XX comes four years after The Ska Vengers’ romping self-titled debut, and roughly eight years after Kaye first put together the band with former guitarist Raghav Dang (later replaced by Chazz). While a twist of Facebook-fate brought Kaye and Dang together in 2008, the former approached Dalmia at one of the rapper’s monthly Bass Foundation nights that same year. Drummer Vasudevan and Chopra joined in, in 2009. The six-member band (along with saxophonists Rie Ona and Shirish Malhotra) spent a large part of 2010 jamming, smoothening out their sound and working on original material alongside — all of which started landing them gigs.