It was a calculated gamble for Bally Sagoo. A decade ago the deejay-turned-music producer landed in Mumbai from Birmingham for the first time in his life and decided to remix classic Hindi songs in an album called Bollywood Flashback. No Indian singer was ready to work with him. Yet when the album released, it broke all boundaries worldwide. And Sagoo achieved what no one had dared to before ? render Indian film music funky. Now this one-of-a-kind artist has decided to take yet another chance. He is moving from behind the turntables and recording studios and playing the hero in a British-Punjabi film.

“I know I am taking a chance in working with completely new people. What is life without taking chances? Once upon a time when I started remixes, the whole world took note. There were people like Asha Bhonsle who commented that remixes would never work. It’s ironical that today she is the one singing remixed versions of old numbers,” says Sagoo.

The Punjabi deejay from the mean streets of Birmingham, England is playing an aspiring musician in his debut film Sajna Ve Sajna. In many ways, says Sagoo, it was an easy role for him. The parallels between his life and the lead character were obvious and this meant he was completely at ease in front of the camera. “The guy lives in the UK. He lives the ‘white’ life, which is what I do. He has to get married to an Asian girl back home from India, which is what I had to do. And he rebels against his culture ? what I did way back in those days. I cut my hair only when I was 21 years old. My mother had threatened to throw me out of the house before that if I touched my hair.”

Inevitably, Sagoo doubles up as the music producer in the movie. “Actually it happened the other way. I was doing the soundtrack for it, having done dribs and drabs in films such as Monsoon Wedding, Mistress of Spices and Bend it Like Beckham. But I wanted to do it in style. So I came over to India and recorded with the best playback singers ? Alka Yagnik, Sonu Nigam, Shreya Ghosal, Udit Narayan, Kunal Ganjawala and Anuradha Paudwal. I was making the songs never realising that they would be picturised on me,” says Sagoo grinning.

While waiting for an August release (the film will premier in London, Mumbai and Delhi), the debutant actor is on the move. Having performed at the IIFA’s after-show party in Dubai, he has been busy setting up his very own lounge bar ? a concept that he has been working on for the last six years.

“We just have to freeze the deal. The first bar will come up in Dubai,” he says. “The Sagoo Bar will be a lounge bar that will fly down deejays from all over the world to perform. There will be live acts as well. But it is not going to be a discotheque with kids arriving with beer bottles. Meeting up with friends, listening to music and having good food will be the focus.”

In between, he’s dabbling in clothes and working on bringing out his own line. “You see, I love trying different looks. I wear a lot of jewellery. Half the time, I am fingering my daughter’s neckpiece or eyeing my wife’s trinkets. And guess what, people actually ask for my kind of look,” winks Sagoo, a picture of grunge wear in ripped jeans and casual T-shirt, accessorised with earrings and a nose stud that happens to be his mother’s silver koka (nose ring).

For those who want to study his techniques, Sagoo is opening a deejaying academy in Mumbai and Delhi, where students will learn to make music not only with turntables and CD players, but also use computers and latest technology for spinning tracks. “Because today you can even sit in an aeroplane and make a song on a laptop. That’s what I do,” says the ace deejay.

Baljit Singh Sagoo’s tale started in Delhi where he was born in Ranjit Nagar. When he was six months old, his family moved to the UK. Growing up in Birmingham, Sagoo started mixing songs for his classmates in school when he was 11. From there, he went on to experimenting with different genres of music in his bedroom which he dubbed Currywood Studio. During the day, he worked as a salesman in an electrical store selling dishwashers and televisions.

“I was influenced mainly by Black music. Soon my Black friends started spreading the word about ‘this Punjabi guy in Birmingham who makes big and bad music like the Blacks’,” reminisces Sagoo. Two things happened at the same time ? he got a call from an Indian radio station asking him to play his mixes for them and an Indian record label, the Orient Star Agency, wanted a demo of his tracks.

“They wanted me to do something Indian. I was not at all into Indian music ? there was no appeal, no beats and no baseline. You have to remember that I was living in the UK and getting sucked into a different lifestyle. But there had to be a beginning, I guess. So I mixed some local Bhangra songs with Western beats,” he says.

The impact was instantaneous. The radio station’s phone lines were jammed. And the agency offered to pay for time in a recording studio. Sagoo made a house mix of Malkit Singh’s Hey Jamalo. It was the biggest Indian mix to hit Sagoo’s part of the world. “All of a sudden my name started bubbling and brewing around the radio stations. I was 24 years old at the time,” relates Sagoo.

Once he tasted success, he quit his day job as a salesman and began spending more time in the recording studios. His first ever remix Bhangra album to hit the music market was Wham Bam (1990), the next being an album, Magic Touch, on which he collaborated with Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. “It was the first album where I created new numbers instead of remixing old ones,” Sagoo points out.

After his association with Amitabh Bachchan for Aby Baby and the best seller Bollywood Flashback, Sagoo went on to produce Rising from the East from which the single, Dil Cheez, reached No 12 on the UK Billboard Charts in 1996. He even started his own record label that has been launching new talents like the rapper Bohemia.

Today, Sagoo still plays to packed houses wherever he goes. “I get paid serious money to travel around the world and do rich weddings and expensive birthday parties. But I don’t do just any party because I don’t need to. I have always been very particular about my logo,” he says.

Rumoured to be the highest paid Indian deejay in the world, Sagoo says he is living the dream life ? travelling and getting paid to party. He adds, “I have bought a house for my parents and cars for both of them. Now I stay with my second wife and three children in Warwickshire living the high life. It couldn’t get better.”

Photograph by Rupinder Sharma