Some artists spend years searching for a sound. Others slowly realise it was there all along, woven through family, culture, memory and the music that surrounded them growing up. Bally-M feels very much like the latter.
I first met Bally through our mutual friend Nico about a year ago, and aside from him being genuinely one of the nicest people you could meet, he also opened another door for me musically. Through him, I properly started paying attention to the ways South Asian sounds were being blended with electronic music – not as a gimmick or trend, but as something deeply personal. Hearing Bally talk about Realist, his latest EP on Daal & Bass Records, makes that even clearer. These sounds haven’t been added onto his identity later. They’ve been there from the beginning.
Bally grew up in Coventry with Jungle and Drum & Bass already part of the fabric of home. A major influence was his cousin, The Specialist, a Jungle and Drum & Bass DJ who would mix those sounds with bhangra on pirate radio.
“Hearing those two worlds being brought together before it was something you saw everywhere really stayed with me,” Bally says.
That cross-pollination sat alongside UK garage, old-school hip hop and artists spanning Panjabi MC, Shy FX, General Levy, Roni Size, MJ Cole, Nas, Wu-Tang and Bally Sagoo. But one of the most important musical influences came even earlier through his late grandad, who took him to learn tabla from a young age.
“At the time I probably didn’t fully appreciate it,” he reflects. “But it taught me rhythm and gave me an understanding of music.”
Looking back now, it feels almost inevitable that percussion and the meeting point between different musical worlds would become such a defining part of what he creates.
University was where listening became participation. Bally moved to Nottingham and found himself immersed in a thriving rave scene spanning Jungle, UKG and dubstep. Suddenly, the music he had grown up around was being experienced in packed rooms with hundreds of people responding to it together.
“Everyone was connecting to music on the same level,” he says. “There was so much appreciation for the music and the artists. It helped me find a community that loved the underground scene.”
It was there that he bought his first decks and began properly experimenting. His student house became an almost constant soundtrack of practice sessions and loud music, much to the probable delight of his flatmates. When he later returned to Coventry, things started becoming more serious. He upgraded his equipment, practised relentlessly and began looking for opportunities to play publicly.
Joe Todd and Phil Evans from Anything Goes and Cov DnB were among the first people to give him that chance.
“Someone has to give you that first opportunity,” Bally says. “You need people willing to take a chance on you while you’re still developing.”
Those early bookings mattered. They built confidence, but they also reinforced something that comes up repeatedly throughout Bally’s story – music rarely happens alone. There are always people opening doors, sharing platforms and pushing you forward.
Leicester later became another important chapter. Although Coventry will always be his roots, working in Leicester eventually connected him with Nico and Doppler Radio, where Bally was offered his own show.
“Having a platform or radio show is very important,” he says. “It helps you grow as an artist and allows you to reach more audiences.”
That relationship eventually became something even bigger. Nico was also building Daal & Bass, a platform dedicated to celebrating South Asian culture through music, and when the record label began taking shape, Bally’s music felt like a natural fit.
Realist EP Artwork by @sunnyformats for Daal & Bass
The result is Realist – a project that brings together the sounds that have followed him throughout his life.
Bally describes his music as rooted mainly in Jungle and Drum & Bass, but with UK garage, Punjabi sounds and the rhythmic influences of his upbringing moving naturally through it. Importantly, he isn’t sitting in the studio consciously deciding where to place something that sounds South Asian.
“It’s more instinctive than that,” he says. “All of those influences are already part of me.”
That distinction feels important.
There is so much conversation now around cultural fusion in electronic music, but Bally’s approach is less about combining two separate worlds and more about refusing to pretend they were ever separate in the first place.
“I realised I didn’t need to choose between Jungle, Drum & Bass, UKG, bhangra or my South Asian heritage,” he explains. “All of those things could exist together.”
That realisation became a turning point in his production. Like most producers, Bally spent plenty of time questioning whether tracks were good enough, comparing himself with others and worrying about whether his music fitted neatly into a particular scene. Eventually, trusting the influences already inside him became the thing that unlocked his sound.
“Once I started embracing that rather than worrying about whether it fitted into a particular genre, the music started to feel much more natural.”
Realist represents that shift.
The EP explores Jungle and Drum & Bass through a distinctly Bally-M lens, drawing together his upbringing, his culture, years spent around rave music and that early understanding of rhythm formed at the tabla.
“For me, Realist is about being honest about who I am musically,” he says. “I’m not trying to make something that fits neatly into one category.”
That doesn’t mean every future Bally-M release will sound exactly the same either. Jungle and Drum & Bass might be central here, but UK garage or something completely different could take the lead next time. What matters is that the music feels true to him.
Releasing Realist through Daal & Bass adds another layer to the story because the EP also marked the label’s first release. What began as a connection through Doppler Radio eventually became a shared milestone.
“It feels like things coming full circle,” Bally says. “I’m proud that Realist gets to be the record that starts this next chapter for Daal & Bass.”
There’s a lot of gratitude in the way Bally talks about getting here. Alongside Nico and the Daal & Bass team, he credits Joe Todd and Phil Evans for those early opportunities, Jasmine Thakar at BBC Asian Network for giving him space through guest mixes, Manara for consistently supporting his music, Project West London for providing another platform, and Bill – Double B – for keeping him focused behind the scenes.
And then there’s family.
“You’ve been there through the highs, the lows, the late nights and everything in between,” he says. “This EP is just as much for you as it is for me.”
Double B & Bally-M
That appreciation says a lot about the way Bally approaches the wider scene too. Grassroots music, for him, is built through people taking chances on each other. Promoters booking artists before they’re established. DJs playing each other’s tracks. Radio hosts offering airtime. Friends telling you to keep going.
“There’s still a long way to go,” he says, “but I’m grateful for everyone who’s helped Bally-M get to this point.”
And he very much sees this as a beginning.
There’s more music to make, more experimentation between Jungle, Drum & Bass, UKG and South Asian sounds, and more dancefloors he wants to reach. But perhaps the most important thing Realist has given him is confidence in the fact that difference doesn’t need to be ironed out.
His advice to anyone sitting at home making music that draws from different parts of their culture or identity is simple.
“Don’t worry about fitting into a box. Your influences are your story.”
He wants the EP to encourage other producers to experiment too – to pick up a laptop, try something, collaborate, take risks and make their own opportunities rather than waiting for permission.
“The thing that makes you different could be exactly what makes people connect with your music.”
That feels like the perfect place to leave it.
Because Bally-M’s story isn’t really about fusing cultures at all. It’s about recognising they were already intertwined – and finally trusting that the sound created between them was worth sharing.
Listen and follow Bally-M:
🎧 Stream Realist EP and explore more: https://hypeddit.com/ballym/realistep
🔗 For socials head to: https://www.instagram.com/djballym/
