Himanshu, FKA Heems, spends a considerable amount of time delving into the identity politics and cultural penumbras of his Indian-American heritage, and no song title codifies that more than this new track he released yesterday, via Twitter, from a laptop in Australia. But for Bollywood laypeople, it's worth noting that the "Mr. India" is actually a reference to the '90s mega-hit superhero film of the same name, which my brother and I repeatedly watched the shit out of while holed up in an air conditioned room on my last trip to India over ten years ago. It's classic over-the-top '90s Indian fantasy/action cinema: The villain's name is Mogambo, which itself is awesome, and he owns a laser which he intends to use to destroy mother India. He's played by the god Amrish Puri in straight diabolical mode (you'll remember him as the "Kali Ma, shakti dey" guy from Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom, you know, the movie about monkey brain soup?). And you may recognize that smiling mug on the cover above as Anil Kapoor, the hero Mr. India himself, who has enjoyed latter day resonance in the Hollywood circuit for his portrayal of the nefarious Who Wants To Be A Millionaire question guy in Slumdog Millionaire, and also for his role in latest Mission Impossible movie in which he apparently does a fun dance and which landed him on the Today show one morning. (This excited my mom, she saved it for me on TiVO.)
Anyway, about the song "Mr. India": This is a track that was cut from the final tracklist of Himanshu's solo debut mixtape Nehru Jackets, and is a "synopsis-rap" track in the vein of NJ's "Jason Bourne." You can hear it at Himanhsu's Tumblr, also called Nehru Jackets. It is presumably produced by Mike Finito, as is the rest of the NJ mixtape. This, by the way, is a truly great genre of rap song because the well is endless. I'd like to see Hima do the 1975 Amitabh Bhachchan/Dharmendra film Sholay next, or maybe Inception or Memento or some Charlie Kaufman film. Also, some disclosure here: I was with Hima when he bought his most recent copy of this DVD, in Jackson Heights, the day we shot DOSA HUNT. Excited to show you that soon; it's a fun thing.
