Asian Dub Foundation

Asian Dub Foundation has its origin in music workshops in east London which brought together Deeder Zaman, John Pandit and Aniruddha Das, releasing their first record, Conscious EP, in 1993.

In 1994 they were joined by Steve Chandra Savale, along with Sanjay Tailor. It is in this formation that the band produced and released their debut album, Facts and Fictions, in 1995. Initially the band found more success overseas, especially in France where their album R.A.F.I. was sold more than 100,000 times. In 1997 they signed with London Records and became more widely known by regularly touring with the band Primal Scream. Rafi’s Revenge, their second album, received a Mercury Prize nomination. In 2000 ADF played the Pyramid stage at the Glastonbury festival. Rapper Deeder Zaman left the band in 2000 to pursue a solo career.

In 2001 ADF created a live score for Mathieu Kassovitz’s film La Haine for the Ony Connect Festival at London’s Barbican Centre. It was an experiment in rescoring a film live as a ‘cineconcert’. They followed the success of La Haine with a rescoring of The Battle of Algiers at the Brighton Dome in 2004.

In 2005 the band won in the Best Underground category at the Asian Music Awards. In 2006 their music featured as part of the dub/punk opera Gaddafi: A Living Myth, which opened at English National Opera’s London Coliseum. Asian Dub Foundation continue to tour internationally, including headline slots at WOMAD and Boomtown in 2016, have completed nine studio albums and are engaged in educational and social activism through their own organization, ADF Education. In 2025, as part of Bradford’s UK City of Culture events, Asian Dub Foundation reprised their ’cine-concert’ live soundtrack of La Haine.

Over the years, the band’s line-up has evolved. Current band members include Aniruddha Das, John Pandit, Steve Chandra Savale, Aktar Ahmed, Ghetto Priest, Nathan Flutebox Lee and Brian Fairbairn. Members who have left the group are Deeder Zaman, Lisa Das, Martin Savale, Al Rumjen, Lord Kimo, Prithpal Rajput, Dipa Joshi, Sanjay Tailor and Rocky Singh.