DJ Cheema

THE STORY SO FAR.



I started my musical journey at the age of 10 like most in the industry by creating remixes of old school bhangra tracks with mainstream English beats just as a fun pass time, but never considered actually going into music properly until a few close friends bugged me into showing some of my material to some Bhangra record labels. all for fun of course!



Eventually curiosity got the better of me and I went to a record label by the name of Amped Records to see if there was actually any chance of releasing my material. They took a firm liking to the idea and concept of a 'Desi Hip hop' type of album but only could release songs that had been released under the Amped label due to copyright issues. So I delved into Amped’s extensive and impressive back catalogue to search for songs that at the time I felt had potential to be remixed and Dakumentry was born.



With the aid of a close friend at Amped, who put in a major good word for me and persuaded the managers of Amped to give me a chance I was quickly signed to a contract and the demo that I had created was released as "Dakumentry". The album went to number one in Bhangra charts all over the internet, which I still don’t know how to this day!! (Laughs)!!!! Due to the surprising success the company asked for another album of a similar style, which I didn’t really want to create because I didn’t feel the need to sample other peoples work anymore and wanted to create my own beats. but either way another sampled album was created under the name "Dakumentry Vol. 2", which saw similar success as the first album.



Despite the surprising success of both these albums, I personally wouldn’t class them as proper albums due to their sampled nature and lack of fresh material, so I decided to stick to fresh material that has been created/produced and actually worth taking proper credit for. but I suppose everyone starts from somewhere!



After releasing two albums under the Dakumentry alias, I then released a few more tracks on various compilations albums under the Amped label. I then left Amped and done some ghost production for a few albums in US and Canada and then hooked up with a small bhangra record label called "Sher Records" in USA. In 2006 the EP (Single) "Desi Cronic" was released in Canada featuring the mighty vocals of such legends as Surinder Shinda and Amrita Virk. Desi Cronic also featured the US artists like E-40, Lil Jon, Rick Ross.



I now have very strong relations with various record labels in Canada, India, and England which gives me a very broad understanding of how the music industry works in all three of these major terains.



Unlike ALOT of other so called producers in the bhangra industry who get their albums and tracks created by other producers and slap their own name all over it, all the material I create is all produced/engineered and mastered by my self with percussion and other Panjabi instruments all being played at my personal studio in Cerritos by close and trusted musicians, this assures non of my sound 'leeks' to other producers without consent.



The majority of Panjabi percussion is played by me and another very talented producer and musician 'Count Daku', who is also currently working on his solo album, so watch this space! I am currently putting the finishing touches to my solo album and also working on various other projects, check out the 'Media' section to see which projects have been revealed.



If you have any questions, drop me a mail in the 'Contact' section.