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As waves of music ebb and flow, we tend to occupy ourselves with the idea that our favorite DJs, the gatekeepers of dear old music, hail from our bordering neighborhoods and cities. To this we attribute our unyielding embrace. We are not all too familiar with the small city of Surat, located in Gujarat, India. Nestled only a few miles from the Arabian Sea, on the Tapi River, Bijal was born here. No sooner than hed reached the age of 1 his parents, middle-class tobacco wholesalers, took a valiant trip to America. Throughout his adolescence he moved from town to town along the Northeast Coast, living, at some instances, in Motels. We had no TV, video camera, or games or anything nice, all money went to my clothes, [and] food, Bijal recalls. It was then that he was swept by the power of music.

At age 15, [my cousin] showed me how to [play] a record Within a few months he paraded to Canal Hi-Fi (a sizeable electronics boutique located on Canal St. in Manhattan) and bought his first pair of turntables. Playing 24 hours a day at first, he soon wanted to record some of his handy work. The now self-proclaimed DJ Bijal made his first mixtape, entitled No Doubt Dancing, when he connected his DJ equipment to his tape deck. He began recording himself DJing and his personality on tape transformed. It was his calling. In 2001, while attending Long Island University in Brooklyn he landed his first weekly gig at Club Exit in NYC. In May 2002 during a Network 40 magazine interview Bijal comments, I dont just scratch into every song. I blend vocals and beats and toy with repeating words and playing with the instrumentals... With trendy mixtapes under his belt he harnessed his cult following. [I Am] the bridge between south asians and mainstream music so what I like to do is slowly work some South Asian artists into my own mixtapes and put them alongside hip-hop and R&B heavyweights. New Yorks hiphop/ reggae crowd flocked to his room each and every Friday and Saturday night. With career highlights including honorable mention on MTV as the next big thing and numerous features in MTVs Mixtape Monday, he capitalized on his notoriety. In Fall 2005, The Ave Magazine dubs him DJ Clue of the South Asian urban music market. Bijal adds, I feel Indian artists fusing their sound into hip-hop or R&B has the potential to create the next wave of music.

...DJ Clue of the South Asian urban music market.

...became the first Indian DJ to have his own syndicated urban radio show.