Chai Town is an all-male, South Asian a cappella group based at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Formed in 2001, Chai Town is an a cappella group and specializes in mixing South Asian and Western music songs together in unique and complex vocal arrangements. Since its inception, Chai Town has released five studio albums and tours across the United States and Canada to perform their music.
Towards the end of 2000, two students, Anish Parikh and Rishi Jain, created a last minute act for a talent competition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The act ended up being a success and they decided to continue it as a student organization. The two, being avid drinkers of tea and being from the suburbs of Chicago, combined the moniker for Chicago, Chi-Town, with chai - the word for tea in Hindi and many South Asian languages - to form the name, Chai-Town.[1] In 2015, the group dropped the hyphen in their name.
Chai Town still tours throughout the year, across the United States and Canada, performing for humanitarian funding efforts, private events, private fundraisers, and school events. They have performed for multiple events aiming to raise funds for educating children in India, in partnerships with schools.
Chai-Town A Cappella performing at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
September 27, 2014 - Performs at University of Connecticut for Asha for Education,[2] a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing education availability in India held Storrs, Connecticut.
March 8, 2010 - Chai-Town participates in the Will-TV A Cappella BEATdown competition with a Cappella groups like the Rip Chords, Girls Next Door, Tone Rangers, Blu Bop, Chandani, Femme Forte, and Cut Time. Chai-Town is declared as the overall winner of this competition by winning the online and phone votes while also being the judges' choice.[10]
January 23, 2010 - Performance at the Krannert Center for Performing Arts at the University of Illinois for a Martin Luther King Jr. Community Event.
January 22, 2010 - Featured at the local radio station in Champaign, Illinois on January 22, 2010.[11]
November 7, 2009 - Chai-Town places 2nd at Anahat 2009.
October 31, 2009 - Chai-Town wins the Homegrown Talent Competition[12] at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign while competing with the likes of the Rip Chords, Girls Next Door A Cappella,[13] Dance 2XS, 3 Spot and a lot more.
April 13, 2009 - Awarded the Best Organization Award by the Asian American Cultural Center.[14]
Chai-Town participates in the South-Asian a cappella competition called Anahat,[15] hosted by University of California at Berkeley and has achieved first place twice in 2004 and 2007.
Chai-Town performs at all major events at UIUC organized by the Indian Students Association like India Night.[16][17]
Chai-Town covers a wide range of musical genres. This includes music from Indian movies like My Name is Khan and Anjaana Anjaani, such as "Sajda" and "Tujhe Bhula Diya". They have also covered English songs of western artists, for example "Anytime" by Brian McKnight, "Kiss From a Rose" by Seal, and "Rockin' That Thang" by The-Dream. Some of their most recent songs include "Mirrors", by Justin Timberlake and hip-hop song "All of the Lights" by Kanye West, which have been uploaded to YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music.
Chai-Town has also covered songs in other Indian languages besides Hindi/Urdu; They have covered a Tamil song, "Pachchai Nirame", a Telugu song, "Aunana Kaadana", and a Punjabi song, "Amplifier", further expanding their repertoire of languages. Chai-Town has mixed many Indian songs with English songs. Some among the many are "Rockin' That Thang" by The-Dream mixed with "Pehli Nazar Mein" from the movie Race and "Imma Put It on Her", by Day26, mixed with "Tu Hi Meri Shab Hai" from the movie, Gangster, and "Love in This Club" by Usher.
Discography
Thus far, Chai-Town has released five albums and six singles.[18] Two of the albums, Good to the Last Drop and Arohanam, were produced through STTM Productions[19] and their two latest albums, SPECTRUM and The Brewprint, were produced by Plaid Productions.[20] Presently, all of Chai-Town's music is distributed through Loudr.[21]
SPECTRUM (2017): Arranged by Niranjan Jayanth, Chirantan Neogy, Ali Nizamani, & Shanay Thakkar
No.
Title
Soloist(s)
Length
1.
"Phir Se Ud Chala/Ilahi"
Shashank Gaur, Paarth Joshi
3:52
2.
"Beautiful Soul/Khabar Nahi"
Milan Shah, Chirantan Neogy, Niranjan Jayanth
3:43
3.
"Sun Saathiya"
Paarth Joshi, Niranjan Jayanth, Vignesh Chandrashekhar, Nathan Du
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