The album cover

Jorhat, Jan. 16: When Gospel meets borgeet, the result is a US chartbuster.

Rupam Sarmah, the US-based technocrat from Assam who had taken gagana out of the bihutolis to Hollywood in 2003, has now turned to borgeet — Assamese devotional songs which originated in the satras of Majuli — for his fusion album My Love is You.

The album not only became an instant hit but was also among the top 10 songs in various music stations across the US last year. It even made it to the Grammy awards nomination ballots last year, though it did not make it to the final five.

“The number God, Can You Hear Me? in the album is influenced by borgeet. I composed the song with the tune of borgeet and rendered it in Gospel style. The songs in the album are unique in composition with innovations which include fusion of Bihu and lokogeet (folksong),” Sarmah wrote in an email to The Telegraph.

The musician had earlier fused the sound of gagana, a musical instrument made of bamboo — an integral part of Bihu music — with notes of the synthesiser for an album with Hollywood composer Alan Roy Scott, famed for his score in the film Top Gun.

“The songs of My Love is You have been played across many radio stations in the US, Canada and other countries,” said Sarmah.

The album was placed third in the Best Indian Album category of the Just Plain Folk Music Awards 2006. He had received a JPF award in 2002 for a Hindi album Piya re.

Sarmah said My Love is You has been dedicated to the people of Assam. In fact, the flip side of the album’s cover has the lyrics of God, Can You Hear Me? with a picture of Majuli.

Born in Jorhat, Sarmah moved to the US in 1992. But his love for Assamese music has made him experiment again and again with indigenous tunes and instruments.