Live at the Gantries 2024: Sunny Jain’s Wild Wild East (Bollywood Meets Cowboy Music)

Whether performing on the National Mall in DC for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, or in the foothills of the Himalayas in Pakistan for 10,000 people, Sunny Jain’s Wild Wild East (Smithsonian Folkways) is a band that creates hypnotic rhythms that intertwine with Hindustani vocals, saxophone and guitar. Drawing from his own family’s immigration story, Jain recasts the immigrant—steeped in the courage to leave a familiar homeland for a new beginning—as the modern-day cowboy and cowgirl. Jain sources musical inspiration from the scores of Bollywood classics and Spaghetti Westerns, Punjabi folk traditions and jazz.