Kabir Singers with Prahlad Singh Tipanya

This event is sponsored by the Center for South Asia.
 

About the performance:

Prahlad Singh Tipanya and his ensemble sing the poetry of Kabir, the great iconoclastic mystic of 15th-century North India, in the vigorous and joyful folk style of Madhya Pradesh’s Malwa region.

Onstage translation of lyrics offered by Linda Hess, Senior Lecturer Emerita in Religious Studies, Stanford University.

Prahlad-ji is a locally, nationally, and internationally acclaimed folk singer from Lunyakhedi, a small village in Ujjain District, Madhya Pradesh. He is renowned for his singing and interpretation of Kabir and other Hindi poets associated with nirgun-bhakti–devotion to a God or ultimate reality beyond word and form. Kabir is famous for both his profound mystical insight and his sharp social commentary. His voice is often invoked as inspiring communal harmony and social equality.

Among Prahlad-ji’s many honors is the prestigious Padma Shri award given by the Government of India. He has delighted audiences in the USA on various visits since 2003. He is a featured figure in the book Bodies of Song: Kabir Oral Traditions and Performative Worlds in North India (Oxford University Press, 2015) by Linda Hess.