From a pure form of music, a voice for expression and opinion, the paradigm has shifted to Nepali lok-dohori music becoming a ubiquitous display of vulgarism and social perversions. Well, with the digitization of music production, the ethnic instruments are losing their value to computer generated samples, drum and bass loops and heavily synthesized background (un)blended with high-pitched, auto-tuned vocals mouthing distorted and double-meaning lyrics.Īll this accompanied by badly choreographed music videos with models and dancers wearing gaudy and skimpy clothes, and keener on exposing their body parts than on actual dance moves, give an idea of what a typical lok-dohori song of today is like. Things change, always, and they have changed drastically for the lok music industry. In a country with deep-rooted cultural biasness and basically indoctrinated by religious mistranslations, ‘lok-dohori’ for our previous generations was also a medium of entertainment and courtship as mild flirtations and teasing from both gender was considered normal. It was basically our version of ‘the blues’. Men singing about leaving their wife and children to find work in a foreign country, women singing about how they miss their husbands gone in search of work, the socially oppressed expressing their woes through their songs and daughters-in-law lamenting about the hardships at their husbands’ were woven into stories which formed the base of the Nepali lok music genre. With ethnic instruments like the maadal, dhime, panche baaja and sarangi in the background, couplets about love, village life, its struggle and even politics formed the lyrics of the Nepali lok music. Nepali lok-dohori is probably the most popular ethnic Nepali music, from the east to west, and religiously heard by those living abroad. Call it what you may-it is dirty, it is sleazy, it is vulgar and from the looks of it, it is here to stay.
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