Early influences on Rafiq Bhatia such as Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, and Madlib—as well as mentors and collaborators including Vijay Iyer and Billy Hart—prompted him to see music as a way to actively shape and represent his own identity, not limited by anyone else’s prescribed perspective. With his embrace of electronica, jazz, rock, and multiple Indian and American musical influences, Bhatia—a first-generation son of Muslim immigrants and the guitarist of the band Son Lux—“blows up all expectations about what can be done with the instrument and how it should sound” (The New York Times).
