Prem Raja Mahat is a living Nepali musical legend in more ways than one. Over the past 25 years, folk music in Nepal has gone from being a very local phenomena to a national celebration.
Prem Raja Mahat, who grew up listening to and singing the "rural Nepali blues" as a young boy in the hills of west central Nepal, is a large part of the reason for the revival and tremendous appeal of folk music in Nepal. When Prem Raja Mahat took up this art form in earnest at the age o f 12, many were dismayed that a sharp young man had chosen the dead end path of a sarangi-playing singing minstrel. But, incredibly, within 10 years Mahat had managed to transplant his own love affair with Nepali lok geet into the hearts of an entire nation. Nepalis became instantly re-infatuated with their own musical roots while swaying and tapping to Mahat's early hits like "panko paat" and "simsime paanimaa." Nepali music fans that grew up on a steady diet of recorded Hindi film music, turned en masse to the folk tunes and rhythms rooted in their own lush hills and valleys.
