by Anandit Sachdev
I haven’t experienced the ‘Dek Bass’ phenomenon in person. I’m not sure whether it’s a performance or a phenomenon either. This uncertainty resides in my subsequent use of the concept here. What I have experienced instead are the multifarious sites of encounter with the Dek Bass phenomenon. Encounters include algorithm-dictated digital experiences, dissonance and noise performances within and outside of white cube gallery spaces, online webinars with filmmaker Rana Ghose and others who have witnessed the phenomenon, and of course, most recently, Rana’s documentary Bass Boss, which follows Dek Bass through the lens of DJ Khobir. For me, all of these are simultaneously first-hand and second-hand experiences. Being a non-Bengali speaker doesn’t help me much either. This is the position from which I understand and write about Dek Bass. This position affords me an encounter with Dek Bass as part of the assemblages associated with it, ready for consumption, disconnected from experiencing its originating context of local contestation.
I first encountered Dek Bass on Instagram through the now extremely famous reel posted by the account @deba_shis_07. Having garnered 2.1 million likes and close to 26k comments along with international attention, the reel shows a playground full of bodies of men and machines. Leaning sound system towers made up of stacks of speaker cabinets and horns (locally known as chonga), mounted on three-wheelers, move around in a maidan, surrounded by a lush green landscape. The sound systems challenge each other by forming sonic enclosures around people in a bid to prove their ability to move air, create noise, and shock the senses. One Instagram user describes it as “Mad Max: Bengal Bash.”
At the time I encountered this reel, I was already intrigued by the question of mobile sound systems. The Indian Express, Scroll, and many other platforms had written about the mobile sound system cultures and their associated use in Kanwad Yatra and political rallies as technologies used to propagate hate-fueled ideologies. Other authors had associated these with being a sonic manifestation of religious fundamentalist masculinities. Yet others have listed it as one of the sites where patriots and Hindutva popstars manifest. However, there has been a simultaneous use of Jamaican-style sound systems in dismantling the state propaganda and spreading the agenda of reason and unity through sound systems.
With dissonance between ideologies as the background, I argued that sound systems are not only devices mediating propaganda and intolerance, but they are simultaneously an essential tool in amplifying and liberating dance floors. This antithetical set of uses of the sound system technologies was highlighted in my paper titled “The Anatomy and Political Currency of Indian Sound Systems”. One of the fundamental shortcomings of this paper was to assume that Indian sound systems are a homogeneous category. My run-in with the Dek Bass phenomenon shattered this misconception of homogeneity soon after I wrote my paper.
The Dek Bass is centred around two simple technical components – the “Dek” which is the cassette tape “deck” where the sound is produced by the DJ/ operator, and the “Bass” which refers simply to the bass drops and frequencies amplified by the assemblage of these sound systems. The technological intent of Dek Bass, which hinges on the production and amplification of sound, presents an opportunity to explore a shift in discourse around sound, which may or may not fall into a binary of conflicting ideologies. I believe this shift from identity to activity can surely help extend the discourse on sonic contestations. Enter DJ Khobir – the Bass Boss.
Musicality and Dissonance
“Idhar attack,” DJ Khobir points to his heart, “waisa waala bass.” Loosely translated to “it should attack here, that kind of bass.” DJ Khobir is in conversation with Hemant SK, a sound artist at REProduce Drones––a listening event curated by Rana Ghose, held at Method Delhi on 7th May 2025. This showcase was one of the three events organised to shed light on the Dek Bass phenomenon through DJ Khobir’s life and practice. The Instagram announcement from the performance detailed what to expect from the show. It said, “in addition to three live performances, this edition of REProduce Drones will also screen a forthcoming film by Rana Ghose on DJ Khobir, Dek Bass, Humming Bass, and other named and unnamed variants of Bengali low frequency abuse [emphasis added], followed by a conversation with the source of this unfathomable genre, DJ Khobir. You should really bring ear protection.”
I forgot to bring my ear protection. Indeed, the event was a noisy affair fuelled by “named and unnamed variants of Bengali low frequency abuse.” Upon entering the gallery space, I encountered an unusual assembly of a sound system staring back at me. Alongside the two bass units and two tops by JBL––an American audio equipment manufacturer––were two additional, locally manufactured horns or chonga(s) on either side of the performance space.
For DJ Khobir, this was modest. “Aur ek pair hota, to accha hota”, he noted while pointing to the bass cabinets in the sound system setup. “Would have been nice to have one more pair.” Khobir’s requirement for more bass isn’t a decision marked by the aspirations of achieving a perfect sound in the venue. It is the very driving force behind the sonority of his sound. Centred around the bass frequencies, his sound reaches its full potential when the technological requirements (more bass cabinets) are met. The dizziness, the nausea, the sonic assault of low-frequency bass, complete with all its sensory effects, is as much a musical decision as it is a technological one.
In Bass Boss, DJ Khobir explains that “people don’t want songs, they want the bass in the songs. The actual song gets pulled down in the mix. I crank that bass. That’s what this generation wants.” DJ Khobir’s performance that evening was a testament to this. Khobir played around five tracks between the 130 and 200 BPM (beats per minute) range as part of his performance. Instead of using a cassette deck, he used a laptop. All his tracks exuded a unique musicality based on repetition and continuity. Most of the tracks were arranged in a manner that solely highlighted the bass frequencies. The rest of the elements––the repetitive kicks, drums, horns, effects, cymbals, sirens––were on support duties and highlighted the bass drop. These bass drops, which were the common key ingredient of all tracks, were created by DJ Khobir himself. He called this “humming bass.” Khobir explains this technique in the documentary. He converts a short kick into a stretched-out sustained bass drop, which he then layers with its own copy. This copy is then delayed and shifted in time with respect to the original in order to digitally create a comb filtering effect, or the “humming” effect. These bass drops weren’t just part of DJ Khobir’s performance, they defined his performance. Almost all tracks included a female speech sample announcing a “speaker check” or “sound testing” which was quickly followed by the humming bass drop. These speaker checks and sound tests barely included any other frequencies, but the bass.
Alongside the bass, there is a heavy presence of sampled Bollywood dialogues in all the tracks he played at the gig. Samples of male protagonists issuing warnings and challenging their counterparts can be heard right before the bass drops. Samples such as: “hai kisi mein dum”, “saamne aa”, “hai koi mard ka bacha jo iss sher se punja laga sake”, “agar koi aage badha, yahin par gaadh ke rakh dunga” – all serve as little warning for the sonic assault which follows. The humming bass then drops abruptly, seldom 4-5 times in a row. In other instances, samples such as “hai koi maai ka laal, jo humse ghumasaan kar sake”, “fire hai na fire”, “aare dekho bhaiya dekho kaun aaye hain”, and so on can be heard right before the sample of DJ Khobir’s own name drops––sonically establishing his authorship and presence. Needless to say, this is again followed by multiple bass drops––the sonic consequence of his presence.
This dissonance isn’t just achieved musically, but also temporally. During the Dek Bass webinar that I attended in March 2025, organised with Rana Ghose, Baalti, Roy Dipankar, and Lewis Khan, it was mentioned that the cassette decks are not played in sync. It is this simultaneity of asynchronous sound that adds to the dissonance. One of the members described this dissonance as “auditory tear gas.” If this musicality is so punishing, what draws people to it? What drives the need to invest and engage with noise, to actively indulge in the effects it has on the body? Simultaneously, it is essential to ask what the relationship is between this acoustic dissonance and the geography from which it emerges. Here, Bass Boss provides a vital context of sonic contestations and puts it front and centre through the life and story of DJ Khobir.
A Landscape of Production
The documentary opens with a shot of a mechanised power loom producing cloth and noise. The shot defines the sonic signature of the geographical landscape, which is that of noise, production, and machinery. The noise of production and fabrication lends itself to this context. West Bengal has had a long history of fabrication, the landscape having been defined by mass production of machines, physical technology and weaving, minting, and other machinery. Add to this the fabrication of speaker cabinets and stacks. Thanks to Ashok Mukherjee, Bengal saw its first homegrown company for audio components established in the 1970s – Sonodyne. Fast forward to the present day, and the local market for audio technologies has grown significantly.
Hailing from Shantipur, DJ Khobir’s family comes from this background of production and fabrication. His father used to be a tailor and worked in the textile industry before then. Khobir has followed suit and has made a business model out of selling noise through custom-built sound systems. Since 2008, when a friend gave him a copy of FL Studio, he has been producing tracks. Over time, he developed his signature bass music, which he puts out on cassettes and sells alongside the PA systems on which these cassettes are meant to be played. Khobir uses his vast knowledge of speaker setup and PA infrastructure, along with sound and music production, to supply both the noise and the infrastructure for the production of noise.
The result of this use of the infrastructure of sound is beyond the sensory. 90% of the frequencies produced by these sound systems are low-end bass frequencies, often considered between 20 Hz and 250 Hz. Rana noted during the webinar that while “the road shows are dance oriented, the competition is warfare”, and what makes it warfare is the sensory deprivation through overstimulation caused by sound. During the webinar, Lewis Khan described this overstimulation as a feeling of claustrophobia, saying that it felt as if he was cushioned between walls of sound. Khobir himself agrees in the documentary that “this bass isn’t meant for society. It is unhealthy. It’s bad for you, it causes heart attacks.”
Such an overwhelming presence of sound cuts through the otherwise still landscape. At one instance in Bass Boss, the image cuts from a noise-fuelled duel between sound systems to a shot of a tranquil pond surrounded by greenery. Rana sporadically cuts between noise and silence at multiple other instances in the documentary. In juxtaposing the geographical landscape, which stands in contrast to the sonic landscape, Rana effectively highlights a sensorial contestation for the viewer. One is left feeling divided between the two different landscapes – one geographical, and the other auditory.
“I’ve made a name”
“Bohot Gareeb aadmi tha, bohot mehnat karke idhar aaya.” I was an extremely poor man, I’ve worked hard to reach here. “Koi jaanta nahin.” No one knew me. “There were times I couldn’t eat.”
“This is the first time I have sat on a plane to come to Delhi. Previously, I didn’t even have money to buy a bicycle. I didn’t even have ₹10,000 at once. I had never seen such money together before. But now, this is where I am.”
“In Kolkata, if you ask anyone about DJing, they’ll say my name. I’ve made a name. I’ve worked very hard for it.”
During the conversation at Method, Khobir restated his conditions of marginality alongside his aspirations of ascending into a sphere where his voice mattered and had very material consequences for others and himself. “The vibrations might cave in your chest. You might vomit. Your throat will hurt––that’s what they want. That’s why everyone knows me. They buy it from me so they can play it. I want to make even harder bass,” Khobir explains in Bass Boss. With the Dek Bass, Khobir’s voice can now be heard and is recognised as consequential––sonically and materially. How well one contests the right to be known depends on how loudly one can assert their voice. This assertion depends on the efficacy of the technological assemblage one can manage to put together. In this way, the sonic, the technological, the material, and the embodied all resonate with each other.
Technological assemblages sit in the middle of these contestations––between the noisy and the tranquil, the certain and the uncertain. Be it the weaving loom or the sound system apparatus, both churn out noise and appropriate capital while doing so. The questions I’m now left asking are; do disparate technological assemblages have a similar power to help transcend social status? Do these technologies and machinery of (social and material) capital appropriation aid in transcending one’s own marginality by the same magnitude? Perhaps it is best to leave these inquiries here for now – contested.
Documentary credits:
Director; Rana Ghose, Assistant Director; National Animal, Producer; Jamm Pro, Camera; Rana Ghose and Shiv Ahuja, Edit; Rana Ghose, Fixer; National Animal, Translator; National Animal
About the Author:
Anandit Sachdev is a practitioner and researcher of sound based out of Gurgaon, India. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Sociology from Shiv Nadar University, India. He can be contacted here: contact@ananditsachdev.com