Karou. Most South African Indians will have an intimate relationship with this word. It’s the expression panted out as the heat of a lusciously slick mutton curry hits your tongue. It’s the constant craving for that same feeling. A simple request to your mother, as she chops onions and tomatoes for whatever is cooking next: “make it karou.” Karou, then, is more than a word. It’s an experience that encapsulates the cultural jouissance of South Africa’s post-indenture Indian diaspora. It’s also the reason why The Kutti Collective chose it as the title for their ongoing party series.
Formed in 2018, The Kutti Collective is a proper mixed masala of six queer, South African Indian artists and cultural workers. Its members include visual artists, dancers, filmmakers, academics, DJs, and photographers. This has allowed them to participate in activities across galleries, nightclubs, conferences, and even restaurants between Johannesburg and Cape Town, quickly gaining attention in the local creative scene. What brought this diverse group together was a shared desire to see greater representation for South African artists from the South Asian diaspora. But what’s kept them together is the way they’ve found those same things in and through each other, taking it upon themselves to make space and make noise.
Karou was a project initially conceived as an introduction to the collective that brought their skillsets into one happening, but also as an intervention on the whiteness of Cape Town’s cultural scenes. Less a party and more a “jol,” The Kutti Collective extended the Karou experience to other Global South diasporic communities in Cape Town and Johannesburg, evolving it into a night centred on community and the kind of music often heard only at family functions, cultural gatherings, or on Lotus FM. From Bhangra to Baile Funk, the musical identity of Karou is rooted in the pulse of non-Western undergrounds, eschewing the four-on-the-floor for rhythmic dance music that reflects the cultural clusterfuck of diasporic identity. The party’s tagline, “for the diaspora, by the diaspora” is also a statement of intent.
The collective’s upcoming sixth edition of Karou pushes the concept even further by collaborating with ROMBO, a food brand concept cooked up by Cape Town’s Not Sad Food Co. “ROMBO comes from the Tamil word niramba, meaning “very much” or “a lot” — the word morphed into romba and eventually landed in South Africa as “ROMBO,” says ROMBO co-founder Yoraya Nydoo. “It’s loud, bold, colourful, and unapologetically extra.” ROMBO takes the sort of classic South African Indian flavours and delicacies that you’d find in your grandmother’s kitchen, and remixes and redefines them for the contemporary, globalised palette. “I am of Indian heritage, but ROMBO is not strictly an Indian food brand,” Nydoo explains. “There are snippets, essences of my roots as a South African Indian descent, but these have been remixed, adapted, and changed over the past 200 years, much like the word ROMBO itself.” It’s this sort of bold redefining of cultural heritage that makes ROMBO the perfect match for Karou.
Happening at The Electric in Cape Town on June 6, Karou x ROMBO positions the kitchen on the dance floor to explore the cultural intersections between food and music, turning The Electric into the sort of party that happens at home – good music, plenty of drinks, and a menu by ROMBO featuring the likes of butter chicken tacos and tequila pani puris. You’re going to want to bring Tupperware.
The lineup for the night features DJs of South Asian heritage, including UK import Chalo, Durban girl Demera(ra), and (yes, it’s me) Kutti Collective founding member DRAGMOTHER. “As a mixed South Asian DJ in Cape Town, I’ve often felt caught between different worlds,” says Demera(ra). “The nightlife scene can sometimes feel disconnected from the cultural influences that shaped me, so bringing South Asian sounds, nostalgia, and references into my sets has become a way of taking up space authentically rather than trying to fit into an existing mold.” Similarly for Chalo, his South Asian heritage is framed by a diverse upbringing that influences his sound. “I’m of Indian origin, but my personal cultural influences also come from East Africa (where my parents were born), Britain (where I grew up), and Hong Kong (where I started DJing and lived for several years),” he says.
Navigating a largely Eurocentric nightlife scene while remaining connected to distinct cultural reference points presents both a challenge and an opportunity for DJs like Chalo and Demera(ra).”I’ve been gravitating towards music coming out of the South Asian diaspora in the UK. UK Garage, electronic music with Bollywood samples, Asian disco and Eastern house,” says Chalo. “Bit by bit, gig by gig, I’ve been dropping more of those sounds into my sets across Cape Town and Johannesburg, always aware of how crowds react and wary of being ‘too Indian’ in my sound.”
For Demera(ra), whose reputation has been growing steadily within Cape Town’s hard-and-fast underground, “It’s never been about playing “traditional” music in a literal sense, but about carrying pieces of my identity onto the dancefloor,” she says. “Whether that’s through Bollywood samples, unexpected techno edits, emotional storytelling, or simply existing in a sari and black dot behind the decks, it opens up possibilities for visibility and representation that I didn’t always see growing up as a Tamil girl.” Visibility and representation remain the final, essential ingredients to the Karou formula. Like The Kutti Collective itself, Karou is an assertion of agency, a reclaiming of cultural identity in a landscape that often rewards assimilation.
“No two experiences of children born into immigrant families are the same, yet I suspect there are commonalities,” says Chalo. “Attempts to be two (or three) things at once. A craving to be accepted. An eagerness to blend in, but without ever seeming too eager to do so. An occasional rejection of one’s ‘parent culture’. And then later, for me at least, a realisation of how immensely comforting glimpses of ‘home’ can be. In Cape Town, those glimpses have been food, stories, history, and music. Which is why I’m so excited about Karou – it’s a chance to go full tilt, bring some mircha, and play whatever feels like the truest musical expression of myself.”
“A project like Karou matters for so many reasons,” says Nydoo. “Many people from the diaspora — myself included — have wrestled with identity, with not knowing where to feel grounded or where they truly belong. Languages get lost. Rituals fade. But two things have always connected people across every divide: food and music. You don’t need to speak the same language or share the same lineage to be moved by both. And maybe that’s where the magic lives — in a shake on the dance floor, or a bite into a warm samoosa. Maybe both at the same time. Somewhere in those small, sensory moments, we find ourselves. And we help other people find us too.”
Karou x Rombo happens June 6 at The Electric. Rombo will be trading their menu from 17:00 with no entry fee, but entry will be R100 at the door from 19:00. Or you can book online now for R60 here.
All photographs courtesy The Kutti Collective. Check out some of the food available at the event below.
