Introduction by Y7

In March 2023, music blogger @billdifferen re-posted a series of videos to (then) Twitter of sound system clashes in West Bengal. The videos in the thread showed two or more mobile sound systems competing with each other by blasting sparse, austere tracks of sweeping bass tones and alarm sounds at deafening volumes. After our initial research, we first came to know these events as ‘Soundcheck Competitions’—a title they are often given, although somewhat interchangeably with other names, such as ‘Music Box Competitions’ and ‘Power Music’. What struck us wasn’t just the sounds, but their visceral, physical presence—vibrations so extreme they distorted the recording devices capturing them. 

Six months later, a TikTok video surfaced of Stefanie Egedy’s performance at New York Fashion Week. Her signature low-frequency compositions were so powerful that they set off earthquake detectors, causing building evacuations. At the same time, our feed also presented us with Baile Funk artist DJ Ramon Succeso, who was deliberately using highly targeted bass frequencies to distort the phone camera filming him, resonating with the sheer vibrational force witnessed in the Soundcheck videos.  

We began to see a pattern emerging: sonic practices centered around not just what sound sounds like, but what sound feels like and—to paraphrase Annie Goh—what sounds have the capacity to move. This in turn led us to write an article for 032c, placing Soundcheck Competitions within a speculative framework of ‘Post-Music’—a provocation to imagine sonic cultures so alien that they could exist outside the confines we collectively place around music itself, and which forefront the vibrational, physical reality of sound. 

Our search to find out more about Soundcheck proved difficult. We contacted telephone numbers painted on the sound systems and joined WhatsApp groups of soundcheck enthusiasts—most of whom were located in West Bengal. Using Google Translate, we clumsily attempted conversations in Bangla, Hindi, and Konkani, occasionally receiving brief responses but more often being ignored or, understandably, teased. Eventually we came across Sonic Street Technologies and were put into contact with one of their former research assistants, Aadita Chaudhury, who was based in Toronto but located in West Bengal at the time of our call, and who was already more than familiar with soundcheck competitions. 

Following the article’s publication in February 2024, we were invited to present our research at Unsound Festival in Krakow that October. We asked Aadita to join us for the talk, and in preparation decided to try to conduct an interview with someone directly involved in the soundcheck scene. We were thrilled when Aadita arranged a video call with Rahul Rana, the scene’s leading vlogger. The interview was conducted in Bengali in September 2024, with Aadita leading the interview and relaying the answers to us in real-time. As far as we are aware, at the time it happened, it was the first English-language interaction with the Soundcheck scene. We hope this transcript offers some valuable insights and context into a practice that is equal parts sonic and social, and which continues to captivate us. 

Aadita Chaudhury & Y7 Interview Rahul Rana

Commissioned and edited by Y7

Translated by Aadita Chaudhury, Mohiuddiin Moin & Y7

Aadita  This sound system practice you’re involved in — what do you and your peers call it? We notice it goes by different names. 

Rahul  We call it ‘DJ box competition’. It takes place during religious festivals like Puja, and happens across Hindu, Muslim, and Christian traditions throughout the year — every month, every season. 

Aadita  Is there a religious element to it? 

Rahul  Yes, it’s connected to religious festivals — Ganesh Puja, Durga Puja, Shiva Puja, and for Muslims, Muharram and Eid — festivals like these. In most villages you will find informal social clubs, and members of these clubs organize the DJ box competitions in collaboration with each other a few days after each religious festival. The competitions are more secular, though—public gatherings just for fun. 

Aadita  You mentioned that DJ box competitions happen alongside various religious festivals. When exactly do they take place? 

Rahul The competitions take place during festivals — for example, after Puja, or a couple of days after Eid. They often coincide with the immersion of idols, known as Visarjan. On these occasions, when big festivals are held, DJ box competitions also take place. 

Aadita We’ve been watching videos of them on YouTube for a while now, and the music played in sounds very simple, sometimes just like an alarm ringing—like many different noises being played at once… 

Rahul  Yes, that happens, but only during competitions. It’s about working on tones. 

Aadita  Can you tell me a little bit more about that? 

Rahul  When a DJ box meets another DJ box face-to-face, they will show off the capacities of their soundsystem not by playing any one particular song, but by playing tones and various other sounds. It’s like an instrumental, or a sound created with an instrumental tone—they’re like alarms, they’re loud.  

Aadita  And who makes the instrumental alarm sounds, the ones created specifically for box competitions? 

Rahul They’re made by the DJs here. For example, there’s DJ BM Remix, RX Remix — many well-known sound creators. They make the tracks themselves.  

Aadita  So is the main purpose here just to make the loudest sound possible? It’s not just random noise, right? 

Rahul   Sound systems do also play songs from different cultures—Hindi, Tollywood, Bollywood—all kinds, and they’re remixed for the DJ. People cut beats, add loops, shorten or extend them. But when the sound systems face off, they don’t always play music — it’s more like the way animals growl or make sounds at each other. We play those tones and alarm sounds to show the system’s full capacity—to create a vibe. Some systems are louder than others, but the noise is kept within certain limits. Ultimately it’s about joy, it’s about making people happy.  

Aadita  Do people dance to the music as well? 

Rahul  Yes, people dance together as well. 

Aadita  And when two DJ boxes come face to face, why is it called a ‘competition’? What exactly does that mean? 

Rahul  It’s really just a joyful moment — like two people meeting during a festival. Nothing more. At most, one DJ box might sound a bit stronger and another a bit weaker, but that’s just a small part of this. It’s not a real competition. This is just a meeting, a joyful encounter.  

Aadita So, there’s no prize involved? 

Rahul No, but there used to be actual prizes at bigger festivals. 10-20 years ago, you would have had big dance festivals in various places where there were 20, 30, 40 even 50 DJ setups in one place—there would often be prizes at these events. 

Aadita  And does this sound system culture connect with other musical genres? Does it link to any other types of music? 

Rahul  Not really. The DJ tracks aren’t like normal songs. They’re designed differently with high beats, high bass, and professional mixes. This is mostly remixed music. DJs very rarely produce original tracks—maybe once a year, if at all. They mix songs from every area—songs from Bollywood, and Tollywood, but also songs from outside India too.  

Aadita  So when did you first think of recording these DJ box competitions and uploading them to YouTube? 

Rahul  I opened my YouTube channel in 2021. That April, I uploaded a video of a box system, and it was really popular. I then began travelling to different villages to film competitions. In those early days, many new YouTubers also started up after watching our channel, and new styles of video began to emerge. Then we started travelling up to 300 km away to shoot vlogs. 

Aadita Do you directly benefit from this? Or is it more like publicity for the people who run the sound systems? 

Rahul  The sound system owners do benefit, and I do too from the earnings I get on YouTube. If I make a video and people from a neighbouring village see it and become interested, they might book a sound system. That way the owners get new clients and their name spreads—sometimes even reaching bigger states like Odisha, Bihar, or Bikaner. 

Aadita  What did you record it with? With your phone? 

Rahul  My mobile, yes.  

Aadita  You mentioned that by uploading these videos to your YouTube channel, young people in your village and neighbourhood have been inspired. Have they started making their own videos? 

Rahul   Yes, a few have started. Some are making short videos, some are doing sound systems. Other villages have also come to know our youth club’s name through these videos. 

Aadita  Are you aware that people from outside of India watch videos of music box competitions through these channels? 

Rahul  We are. Lots of different types of people are interested in this.

Aadita  Do you find this encouraging? 

Rahul  Of course—otherwise it wouldn’t have grown to be this big, and we wouldn’t even be meeting you.  

Aadita You mentioned before that these videos have reached Hindi-speaking and Bhojpuri-speaking areas like Bihar? I was wondering—do box competitions happen there too? 

Rahul  Yes, it happens there, but not as much as here. It’s kind of like our style. We each have our own way of doing things.  

Aadita  Could you tell me a little bit about those differences? 

Rahul  Here in West Bengal the sound systems play louder, with more vibration. You feel it in every song, in every track. Over there it’s more like regular mainstream songs—light dhol or dholki mixes, stuff like that. They tend to use JBL-type set-ups, with a focus on clean, quality sound. Here, we have more of a heavy, vibrating sound—what we call pressure songs. 

Aadita  A name we see all the time in these box competition videos is DJ Sarzen. Is he just one person? A collective? 

Rahul  He’s just one person. The sound system is named after its owner, but he has about 30-40 staff. They’re his operators—that’s what they’re called.   

Aadita   So, how does he manage them? I mean, do they have income from this? How do they pay the staff? 

Rahul  Income is based on seasons; in season, a setup might run for three or four days. For that he would book his staff and organise everything. But on days when there’s no event, there’s no work, and he might send some of them home. It’s run like a system. 

Aadita  And does the owner, DJ Sarzen, ever do the mixing himself? 

Rahul  I think he may have done it before, but I haven’t heard of him mixing recently. But given how famous the soundsystem is, I imagine he will have done it in the past. 

Aadita  Is his sound system the biggest? 

Rahul  No, it’s not. They are big in Jharkhand state, which is where they are based, but in West Bengal we have popular setups like Power Music, Titanic Music, and Barman Music. Each state has its own sound systems at that level.  

Aadita  And speaking of the bigger setups, we’ve really been wanting to find out more about this video, the Bhowanichak competition—it’s the most popular video on your page. Can you tell us a little bit more about it? 

Rahul  Bhowanichak is the biggest competition here. Every year there are two—one during Saraswati Puja and another during Lakshmi Puja, both on the occasion of the immersion of an idol. It happens in West Bengal, near Kanthi. Champatala is another big competition. 

Aadita  And this video was after Saraswati Puja? 

Rahul  Yes, Bhowanichak was after Saraswati Puja and Champatala was after Lakshmi Puja. 

Aadita  And why is it so popular? 

Rahul  Well, at Bhowanichak there are usually twenty-five to forty setups. All the big DJs come. It’s organised like a fair, with a large open ground. The setups run all through the night. The guys from each club stay with their setups—enjoying themselves, having fun. Then in the morning, all the setups gather on the field, and that’s when the actual round of competition begins, at about 8-10 AM. 

Aadita  So, as well as understanding the local scene today, we’d also like to know about the history and social context of box competitions. Do you know when or where this practice of DJ Box Competitions originated from? 

Rahul  It started about 30-40 years ago and was much smaller—it wasn’t that popular and hardly anyone knew about it. People used to use small JBL systems, just a single box carried on bicycles or rickshaws. My father, grandfather, and uncles talked about it happening in their time, often a few days after religious festivals.  

Aadita  So you don’t know the origins of it before that? 

Rahul  I only know about it through what my father and family have told me. They did it too at a young age, but on a smaller scale—in our time it has grown into something much larger. But beyond what they’ve told me, I don’t really know how it first started.  

Aadita And are there any photos of your father’s or uncle’s sound systems? 

Rahul   Sadly not. We only got mobile phones in India 10-15 years ago, and cameras weren’t popular back then.  

Aadita  I understand. I’d like to shift now to some questions about the social aspects of Box Competitions. Are they related to any personal, political, or ideological beliefs?  

Rahul  No—everyone comes together for fun, then they go home. There is no politics, no political parties.  

Aadita  I am not necessarily talking about political parties… 

Rahul  It’s only about fun, nothing else. It’s a peaceful atmosphere. We do it for 1-3 hours, then we go home. 

Aadita I see. So could you tell me a bit about the presence of women in this scene—to what extent do they participate and how do they contribute?  

Rahul  I’d say women make up around 20% of the people at these events.  

Aadita  And how do they participate? I’m not necessarily just talking about women in the crowd, but also those selling puffed rice, or cleaning the sound system…  

Rahul  There are one or two famous women DJs, but otherwise women don’t really participate in the technical maintenance of sound systems. But they do join in with dancing and by selling food and drinks at stalls during competitions though.  

Aadita  So there are women DJs? 

Rahul  There are one or two women DJs here, yes. They are famous. 

Aadita   And in terms of safety at these events, obviously something that is in the news at the moment is the aftermath of the rape and murder of the young doctor at RG Kar medical hospital in Kolkata. Many people have been talking about women’s safety since, and night-time safety more broadly. Has the incident had an impact on box competitions? 

Rahul  Yes, of course it will continue to have an effect. I hope what happened will not happen again, and that there will be efforts to make sure it does not. Incidents like this are very rare here — they don’t usually happen. If something like this had happened closer to our own neighbourhoods, or even in our own homes, in front of our families—it would have been even more serious for us. But even so, it still leaves a mark. We’ve all felt shaken by it. And whatever steps the government decides to take from here—whatever rules or measures they bring in—those will affect everyone, including us. 

Aadita  And before the verdict comes out, are there Reclaim the Night marches happening in the villages near you? 

Rahul   Yes, there are. 

Aadita  Do you have any plans to support them or join them? 

Rahul  Yes, we have supported them. We took a sound system—a smaller one, not a competition-scale one. It was using small speakers, mics—that kind of setup. 

Aadita  So you’ve supported the protests? Was that especially about the RG Kar incident, or more generally? 

Rahul   I mean, whenever something big happens, we get involved. Not just for the RG Kar incident. We do it in every major case. 

Aadita  So you use the sound systems to protest? 

Rahul  Yes. 

Aadita  This is what I was trying to say earlier, that outside of party politics these sound systems can be a way for ordinary people to protest. 

Rahul  Yes, of course. 

Aadita  Okay, thank you for clarifying. Lastly, a question about you. We’d love to know how you listen to new music and where you find it?  

Rahul  Whenever new movie music comes out, sound systems will use tracks to make new beats… 

Aadita   But what do you yourself like? We’re asking what you listen to… 

Rahul  I think Bango Bango Bango [1] is the best. Also, Mama Mama Piya2, and It’s My Challenge3. 

Aadita  So do you prefer film music? 

Rahul   Yes, film music is more popular—it runs more.  

Aadita  Do you prefer Bengali or Hindi? 

Rahul  Hindi, Hindi, definitely Hindi. 

Aadita  And do you find these on YouTube? Or on TV? Or radio?  

Rahul  Mostly from YouTube. Otherwise, apps like Spotify, or Gaana 

Aadita  And how about sound systems, do you have a favourite? 

Rahul  Basically, Power Music is the best, Barman Music is second, and Titanic Music is third. 

Aadita Great. Thank you so much for sharing all of this with us, Rahul. As we mentioned, this interview is for research for our presentation about box competitions in Poland. We want to understand this culture properly so that we can give a truthful representation of it. Is there anything that we’ve not said that you think we should be telling outsiders? 

Rahul  To truly understand this, you have to come here. You have to see it with your own eyes. It’s not something that can be experienced or conveyed through a phone or a lecture. There’s not much more I can say: If you want to understand it, you have to come and see it. 

References

[1] Examples of Rahul Raha’s favourite ‘Bango Bango Bango’: Bango Bango Bango Dj Remix; Bango Bango Bango 1080p HQ Audio; Bango Bango New Horror Sound – DJ BM REMIX; Bango Bango Bango New Style Face To Face Dot Competition Crow Humming Mix 2023  

About the authors

Y7 (Hannah Cobb & Declan Colquitt) are a duo of post-disciplinary artist-writers working out of Manchester, UK.

Dr Aadita Chaudhury is a writer, science studies scholar and arts-based research methodologies practitioner.