Background
Zaman was born in Karachi, Pakistan and lived in Ankara, Amman, and Dhaka before moving in London, England at the age of eight. His father is a homeopathic doctor.
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State Bengal
Edit ProfileCareer
In 1987, Zaman set up the State of Bengal group in London after a visit to Noakhali, Bangladesh, where he interacted with traditional folk musicians and dancers. Outside of the State of Bengal project, Zaman also worked with British Asian youth groups, setting up music training workshops. After working in a variety of communities from across the country, they founded a record company called Betelnut Productions.
Formerly a teacher, Zaman worked at youth centres.
State of Bengal was a DJ at the Anokha club in London"s East End during the mid-1990s. His tracks "Flight IC408" and "Chittagong Chill" – written and produced with Matt Mars – were featured on Anokha – Soundz of the Asian Underground compilation, and helped him gain prominence.
Singer Björk discovered his work at Anokha. He opened with the homeogenic world tour, and remix her track "Hunter" after hearing the original "Hunter" by State of Bengal in September 1996, thereby signing to the One Little Indian record label.
After Anokha, State of Bengal took up residency at the Office Centre club nights, he produced his debut album Visual Audio in 1998 and then toured solo at several international festivals, and did extensive remix work.
After the release of Visual Audio in 2001, State of Bengal worked on two projects with musicians from Bengal, collaborating with Indian sitar innovator Ananda Shankar on the 2000 album Walking On and with Baul singer Paban Das Baul on the 2004 album Tana Tani (Push and Pull). In 2008, he remixed Massive Attack"s album Mezzanine. In 2007, Zaman"s second solo album Skip-IJ was released.
Subsequently, alongside music work and DJing, Zaman went back to teaching kids and conducting music workshops.
In 2001, Zaman played in Dhaka, Chittagong and Kolkata. This was the first time he visited Bangladesh in 13 years.
On 20 May 2015, Zaman died of an apparent cardiac arrest from a suspected heart attack.
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Born
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Died
March 20, 2015 (aged 49) -
Nationality
United Kingdom