Amrit Singh Is A Person

@amritsingh
Filmmaker, DOSA HUNT (Trailer, EPK)
Executive Editor, Stereogum.com
CEO, ASP
Esq.
A photo, if you need one, by Laura June Kirsch

Amrit Singh has served as Executive Editor of Stereogum.com for seven years, writing and producing the website into a leading voice in independent music. And now, he is writing his bio in the third person. Amrit's video journalism has appeared on ABC, MTV, and Fuse. (A collection of these clips, including that time he hosted 20 all-star indie comedians and musicians bowling for charity, are on Vimeo.) He also served as Editor of the University of Wisconsin International Law Journal, and is a NY State Bar certified attorney, but we try not to remind his father of this. Most recently Amrit wrote, directed, produced, and appeared in his first film, DOSA HUNT, featuring members of Vampire Weekend, Das Racist, Neon Indian, Yeasayer, and the Vijay Iyer Trio on "The Greatest Hunt For South Indian Food In NYC Ever Committed To Film!" (Here's the trailer, and here's the EPK, if you're curious.) Called “sharply funny” by New York Magazine, “part No Reservations, part Big Brother, part something smarter” by Interview Magazine, and “a short film about the Indian community’s growth and search for cultural roots in the US” by The Times Of India, the documentary has also garnered kind reviews and profiles in BlackBook Magazine, Billboard Magazine, Huffington Post, FADER, Gothamist, The Awl, Hipster Runoff, IFC, PAPER, and Hyphen Magazine, amongst many others. (BlackBook said "Singh has the mark of a fanboy filmmaker not yet jaded by the Merchants Of Cool-hood of pop music." So, he has that going for him.) If you are a fan of the radio format, you can hear Amrit talk about making it, with Yeasayer's Anand Wilder and host John Schaefer, on NPR. Or you can listen to him talk for an hour about food, identity, LA, and NYC with Food Is The New Rock. Or you can hear him laugh in the face of racism on Andrew Ti's great Earwolf podcast Yo, Is This Racist? Somewhat more seriously, you can read Das Racist's Ashok Kondabolu interview Amrit about much the same, as well as the larger themes in their work and life stories, 9/11, hate crimes, working as a corporate attorney, and making sense of it all through art and blogging at the Asian American Writers Workshop. DOSA HUNT enjoyed a sold-out three-day premiere at Brooklyn's Nitehawk Cinema, with MTV legend John Norris moderating the Q&As. As these photos suggest, everyone wore suits and looked great. The film has been an official selection at CAAMFest, Indian Film Festival Of Los Angeles, Winter Film Awards, and New York Indian Film Festival, packing houses at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum, the ArcLight Hollywood (twice), and in NYC's Paramount Screening Room, (le) poisson rouge, and Tribeca Cinemas. In May of 2013, the Asia Society featured Amrit, alongside the likes of Margaret Cho and Aasif Mandvi, in a series of Q&As celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. At SXSW 2012, he joined Top Chef's Richard Blais in a filmed conversation about career and creativity. That same year in writing, Amrit covered a tragic beat in music news: Most notably, an essay on the hate crime in Wisconsin and its musical implications, titled "Hate Punk & Kirtan: Musical Overtones in the Wisconsin Sikh Temple Killings." He also wrote eulogies to the great Pandit Ravi Shankar, and the great Williamsburg experimental music venue Zebulon, in addition to "Helping Beach House Plead Their Case Against Volkswagen" in response to the car company ripping off the band in a nefarious sound-alike ad campaign. It's not all blog-sadness, though: Amrit makes a Monthly Mix over at Stereogum which is a good crash course in the month's best new music. It's free and legal, just like America.