Bobby's Voice: "You and I, the Kumar brothers..."

I wish I had known my uncle Bobby better. He might be the reason I’m a musician. When they were kids, he showed my dad his Important Records, Western music like The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd, introducing him to a totally different world from the Bollywood tunes that their peers would listen to. One day he brought home Let it Be and it all changed for my dad. What with my dad playing these records (along with many thousands of others) throughout my childhood, there’s a pretty straight line to my eventually devoting my life to music.

It was hard for us to bridge the gap of distance and time and Bobby’s lack of mobility. He and my Dada (father’s father) lived with us for a few years when I went to middle school in Toronto, Canada and that’s probably the most I got to interact with him. His bedroom was across the hall from me and I remember being kind of annoyed about the assistive technology that suddenly appeared everywhere, like safety rails and a seat in the tub.

But every time he’d ask me to come in to turn off the TV and get him some water, or I’d just drop in to say goodnight, I remember he’d always greet me ‘hello boss’ and proceed to make me laugh like hell. Like my Dad, Bobby was a born jokester.

Soon enough, I moved to New York for high school, and then to Berkeley, and my visits to India became more sporadic and brief. I learned about the physical abuse that Bobby went through at the hands of my Dada after their mother died. I was only able to visit one or two more times, though I was very happy to be able to go with him to the Naz Foundation, where he was able to teach for a couple years (as chronicled in “Of Some Use”).

After listening to his stories through my dad’s lyrics, I think that something the three of us have most in common is a buzzing, endless fascination with people and conversation and the emotional impact that words can have. With that in mind, it makes me feel very sad to think of how alone Bobby was in his last years. But it also made me feel very proud of how committed my dad was to being there for him to the very end (as depicted in “ICU”).

My dad is a lot. His form of love can be smothering and overwhelming and overall Too Much. But Bobby’s final gift in inspiring us work together on this album was to forge a different bond in our relationship over 30 years into my life. The Kumar brothers discussed in “Spinning” are Bobby and my Dad, but in a way it’s also the two of us.

This year, I tried to give back to my dad by preparing the Sun Kin live band to perform the Bobby’s Voice live show on his birthday at the beautiful Healing Force of the Universe record store in Pasadena. If you’re in the LA area and are free this Saturday, please grab a ticket and come by. Space is quite limited. My dad will be performing monologues that give more context to the stories on the album, and it should all be terribly special.

Fifty years ago, my uncle Bobby showed my dad the world of Western Rock n Roll, an event that cascaded down to change both of our lives forever. We’ve used that passed-on knowledge to write, compose and record Bobby’s Voice, a tribute to Bobby and everything he was. We wanted to give him the voice that he had lost for most of his life. Making this album made me feel a lot closer to him. I hope it does the same for you.

Thanks for listening.

Here are some lovely write-ups about Bobby’s Voice if you’d like to read more <3

“…if the lyrics of Bobby’s Voice are a family member attempting to step into another’s shoes, Kabir’s setting them to music and singing them are effectively another level of interpretation. All things considered, the Kumars pull this off admirably…” - Rosy Overdrive

“Far more than an act of remembrance, Bobby’s Voice becomes a comment on the public attitude towards disabled people, as well as a highly personal attempt to right those wrongs in retrospect. To finally grant Bobby that which was denied him in life as one final gesture of love.” - Various Small Flames

“There’s a point where it kinda cools down and the spoken lyrics describe all of the things that people with, seemingly, similar disabilities to Bobby do, including sports and athletics (think of the amazing athletes in the Paralympics), and then you really begin to feel a sea-change in Bobby’s outlook, and his decision to be “of some use,” and do something. See, already I’m tearing up. Sigh…” - That’s Good Enough for Me