Talvin Singh, the British-Indian musician, is associated with which instrument?

Explanation

Talvin Singh is a British-Indian musician, composer and producer, known for combining the tabla with electronic music. He is one of the pioneers of the "Asian Underground" movement, which mixed Indian classical and folk music with modern Western dance and electronic music.

Talvin Singh was born in 1970 in London, United Kingdom, to a family of Indian origin. He learnt the tabla as a young man and went to India to study under Pandit Laxman Singh. He became known in the 1990s for his innovative music, in which he combined the rhythms of the tabla with drum and bass, electronic beats and jazz. In 1999, his debut album "OK" won the Mercury Music Prize, one of the most important music awards in the United Kingdom. He has worked with many famous international musicians, such as Björk and Madonna, as well as with Indian classical musicians. He has also composed music for films and stage productions.

The Asian Underground was a musical movement of the 1990s among young British Asians, especially in London. Its musicians combined South Asian sounds, such as the tabla, sitar and Indian vocal styles, with Western electronic music, hip-hop and rock. Other well-known artists of this movement include Nitin Sawhney, Asian Dub Foundation and the State of Bengal.

The tabla is the most popular percussion instrument of Hindustani music. It is a pair of drums, the dayan and the bayan, and has six main gharanas: Delhi, Ajrara, Lucknow, Farukhabad, Benaras and Punjab. Famous tabla players include Ustad Allah Rakha, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Pandit Kishan Maharaj and Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri. Zakir Hussain also worked widely with Western musicians, for example in the band Shakti with the guitarist John McLaughlin.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Sitar is linked with Ravi Shankar and Anoushka Shankar.
• ✗Sarod is linked with Amjad Ali Khan.
• ✗Flute is linked with Hariprasad Chaurasia.