DH!:  So, you have a lot of exciting things going on with 'Indian Timing' out.  Tell us about it?

Panjabi MC:  I've kind of spent the whole of this year so far recording it.  I started recording it about this time last year and so; most of the year again has been spent in the studio.  I produced not just in the studios, but out and about asking people what is going on and I made sure that there was a good selection of good dance floor tracks on there, and a few experimental tracks. So there's a whole lot of different stuff on the album. 

DH!:  When you say you're 'out and about' you really were.  I read that the album is a reflection of your different travels through Europe and Mumbai and some of the other countries you went to right?

Panjabi MC:  Definitely.  Because with the last stop I did with the last release I got a lot of gigs in Dubai and also some different places like Germany and Russia and I've been doing the new years in Russia since then.  It's just a reflection of the different music that's been influencing me over the last five years. In the past I have been keeping my albums quite contemporary and now I've got to try a different view, different styles of what I can do with that stuff.

DH!:  Then how did you come up with the album title, 'Indian Timing'?

DH!: You have some diverse songs on the album, tell me about them. 

Panjabi MC:  There are 20 songs on the album and I can start by going through a few of them.  There's my first Bollywood song that I've kind of done, which is 'I'm a Disco Dancer,' which is a remix that was done by Bappi Lahiri.  I've never actually done Hindi songs so that was something new.  Also the first track on the album 'Can't Stop Us' I was in...(can't tell) and stuff when the riots were going on and that's been really influenced by the riots and...so it's like a Punjabi Hip-Hop kind of vibe there.  I've got the 'A-team' sample used on one of the tracks, which is 'Panjabi Soldiers' and that track could mean...it's got a fast vibe really.  'Snake Charmer' is like, don't really need much introduction because I guess it's been played, it's been getting played for a bunch of years.  I've recorded that one in the studio with a real snake charmer and a real snake and I had to go to India because they wouldn't let the Snake into England.  I guess that was the story behind that one. 

DH!:  So you were actually in the studio with the snake charmer?

Panjabi MC:  Yeah when we recorded the actual instrument, the snake charmer instrument.  I got a real snake charmer with his real snake to make sure that the snake was feeling the track.  If the snake's not feeling it then it's not right, that's what I always thought.  It had to be a real snake charmer instrument because they say that the snake's deaf and everything, but there must be some sort of frequency that brings the snake out of the basket and what not.  So that had to be a real snake, with a real snake charmer with a real snake beat.  I guess it's working, because when you play that on the dance floors everybody goes a bit schizo to that instrument, so yeah it's quite good.  There's a whole heap of tracks, I can tell you the story behind every single one of them really if you want to know, but there's a lot of tracks on the album.

DH!:  What it was like working with Bappi Lahiri? 

Panjabi MC:  Oh yeah, he's like the Godfather of Bollywood, he's out there! He's definitely the big daddy out there.

DH!: Aside from your collaborations on the album, you've worked with several A- lister's across the board, who would you say are some of your most memorable?

Panjabi MC:  The first thing that would come to my mind, the one that blew my head off was when I recorded with Spike Lee and DJ Premier, Premier is like one of my idol producers who I kind of grew up listening to him.   And so these guys called me up for 'Inside Man' when they were working on the film.  So that was recorded up in New York in Sony Studios and it was like very memorable for me because it was like just being in like the biggest lab I've ever heard of.  I'm recording with like the biggest cats in the world basically.   After that ...you know...yeah, I'd like to have a minute to remember more.
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DH!: Your collaboration with Jay-Z really brought Bhangra into the mainstream and highlighted the whole east meets west collaboration. Since then we've seen a lot of big rappers going out and collaborating with a lot of artists of South Asian descent.  I am sure you know of the track for 'Singh is King'.  What are your thoughts about that and in general on the recent fusion collaborations that have been going on t?

Panjabi MC:  I think it's good, this is what basically, I envisioned a long time ago and for me it's all good, I like things like that to happen.  I've been specializing in mixing the elements of the music.  It's us guys in the U.K. that kind of invented that whole style really. The U.K. really made things like ' Snoop and Akshay Kumar' happen. 

DH!:  So what are some future collaborations or projects that you have coming up?

Panjabi MC:  I've been in the studio quite a lot in America, but I can't discuss a lot of that because of confidentiality, but I can give you an exclusive on a couple of things, which is The Great Khali, the wrestler I did a little track for him, which is his intro track when he walks in the ring; that's not on the album, but it's a thing I was doing now.  Also we're working on the remixes now as well, so that's going down.  We also got Akon on a track.

DH!:  So Akon is on a track for your next project?

Panjabi MC:  I'm not sure what it's for yet.

DH!:  So are we going to be seeing more of you in Bollywood as well?

Panjabi MC:  I would love to do stuff in Bollywood, that would be brilliant.  I'm open to anything really, anyone that would have me I'm cool with.

DH!:  Do you have a message that you want to send out to our readers at Desihits?

Panjabi MC:  Just want to say that the album is out now so basically come for a sneak preview at pmcrecords.com.  And it's in the shops, Itunes, and what not.  It's basically out there on the street right now.