TJ Rehmi

T.J. Rehmi has shaped a singular guitar approach by weaving together global musical traditions. Starting out as a self-taught jazz and blues player, he picked up pieces by Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Frank Zappa, and Santana entirely by ear and later expanded into a broad array of styles. Deeply engaged with England’s Asian Underground, he has performed Indian classical music, Indo-Jazz fusion, bhangra, reggae, and African forms. As a session musician, he ranked among the first to transfer reggae bass lines into bhangra arrangements. Although he draws on electronic tools such as sampling and sequencing, Rehmi consistently offsets these with acoustic instruments while anchoring his sound in the classic bass-and-drums framework. Born in Birmingham, England, to Asian immigrant parents, he initially gravitated toward Western rock before turning toward world music. In the late ’70s he worked with several local jazz-funk and reggae outfits, then spent the 1980s and early ’90s performing with multiple bhangra groups. A decisive shift occurred when jazz saxophonist Andy Hamilton mentored him and introduced music reading. Rehmi next studied Indian classical music and Indo-Jazz fusion with composer John Mayer and further honed his technique at the Conservatory in Birmingham.