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Even when fixing teeth, Advait “Avi” Shah can’t stop thinking about music. A dentist by trade, Shah nonetheless enjoys a lively side hustle performing on the tablas and the dhol, traditional Indian instruments that he incorporates into various ensembles that marry Eastern musical motifs with Western modes such as rap and beatboxing. It’s a unique way to bridge his ethnic heritage with the experimental firmament of the American soundscape.

“That’s why I kind of fit in with this whole fusion of Western culture. Every band I played with has that,” Shah said recently from his Maryland home. But, because he’s mostly self-taught, he freely admits that “if I ever had to [play] something traditional, I’d be completely lost.”
On May 13, Shah will leave his drills and scrapers behind to join violinist Nistha Raj and Grammy-nominated progressive hip-hop artist Christylez Bacon at the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Festival at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art.

Hello Alchemical Records. I hope you all had a lovely Earth Month! Sustainability is a very important topic to me, as it should be for everybody. Since 2019, I have had the pleasure of working professionally combining two of my favorite things, live music and creating a better environment for us and generations to come. I have seen artists use their platform for the greater good, which has given me hope in what can seem like a lost cause sometimes. There are quite a good number of artists that fall in this category, but I wanted to share what I have experienced or seen.
Coldplay:

In 2021, I tweeted that I wanted to work/tour for a sustainability team for Coldplay. Not only is Coldplay a band that I have listened to for as long as I can remember, but they are the band that made me aware of concert sustainability, or lack thereof. One of my best friends, mentors, and former supervisor Lexis Yelis referred me to work the Coldplay show at FedEx Field and it was a dream come true learning experience.