RDB Remember Brother Kuly With Special Memorial Song: Yaadan – RDB feat. Harjog Singh.

In a final poignant farewell to their beloved brother Kuly, who passed away on the 22nd of May 2012 from a brain tumour, his family and record label Three Records will release a special song and memorial video to remember the international musician.

The song, entitled ‘Yaadan’ (Memories) has been written by Kuly’s father Harjog Singh and sung by Kuly’s brothers Manj and Surj along with a verse sung by their father. The music and production of the track was composed by Kuly last year.

In a further tribute to international producer Kuly, Urban Bhangra songstress Nindy Kaur will release a track featuring Kuly’s vocal and a hook line produced for her by Kuly before he passed away.

Speaking about the recording of the emotional song ‘Yaadan’, Manj said: “This song was the hardest one we have ever had to sing, and was very emotional for us all. Dad would tear at every line he would sing. This song is from the heart and we hope the world appreciates it.”

As a lasting legacy to Kuly, his family and friends have set up a ‘Just Giving’ Memorial Page, so that those who wish to can visit the page and pledge what they can to BrainTumour UK, which works tirelessly to fund research and raise awareness of brain cancer (http://www.justgiving.com/Kulyrdb).

Click here to download Yaadan.

The international music fraternity has faced a saddening loss with Kuly of music band RDB, passing away on 22nd May 2012 in Houston, Texas, USA. The popular music group member sadly lost his battle with cancer at the young age of 35 years old.

Kuly was diagnosed with a brain tumour in April 2011 and underwent radio and chemotherapy. He was receiving treatment at a specialised clinic in Houston at the time of his death.

Kuly was an intrinsic part of RDB, a leading international music group, famed for their contribution to globalising Bhangra and Indian music. His legacy will remain with RDB and their super-hit tracks such as Aaja Mahi, Singh is Kinng, Aloo Chaat and Shera di Kaum.

Today, 5 June marks the birthday of Kuldeep Singh Ral, one third of the imperious musical outfit RDB. Kuly was the catalyst, the all-important spark and very much the driving force behind the group’s burst into the public’s consciousness. Their breakthrough was spectacular; their image and branding a rank improvement on virtually everyone else at the time of their debut and in one fell swoop took the scene by storm.

This was a cohesive, eyes-on-the-prize unit that made accessible music which certainly hooked us in from the get-go with their flair for producing anthems that combined inspired sampling, plenty of speaker-shaking bass allied with desi rhythms. They had the exceptional capacity and musical nous to switch from a blistering garage or drum & bass beat to a hardcore desi smothering at a drop of a dime, such was their comfort and creativity across genres to formulate the RDB sound which we grew to love.

Once they had Bhangra conquered here in the UK, Kuly sought to take the RDB show worldwide and so off they headed into the Bollywood razzle-dazzle. Sure some observers may argue that the band appeared to neglect the UK Bhangra scene but they took several artists under their wing and to this day continue to contribute towards the songs we play over and over again on our iPods. Even the sceptics cannot knock them for their confidence in treading new waters and indeed making a good fist of it with a string of hits under their belt and many more we suspect in the pipeline.

Like others have mentioned, our fondness of Kuly goes way back to the advent of the RDBtv video blog that was the brainchild of and presented by Kuly himself. This was groundbreaking content for the mainstream let alone the Asian scene and he was the life of the online party as it were. We would eagerly anticipate each new episode like nothing before as we knew Kuly would have something entertaining up his sleeve to reward our patience.

Such a sincere, remarkably hard-working and all-around good guy has left us far too early but we will never forget the name he forged with so much dedication and continue to appreciate the amazing musical memories.

As a tribute to the pioneering man himself, T-Minus’ very own @HarkBhambra has put together an 80 minute mixtape that celebrates the work of RDB and particularly their early years wreaking havoc on the UK Asian market. RIP Kuly.