Rafi's Revenge is an album from 1998 by Asian Dub Foundation

Asian Dub Foundation

Asian Dub Foundation are a British electronica band that plays a mix of rapcore, dub, dancehall and ragga, also using rock instruments, acknowledging a punk influence...

. The album mixed jungle

Oldschool jungle

Jungle is a genre of electronic music that incorporates influences from genres including breakbeat hardcore, and reggae/dub/dancehall. There is debate as to whether jungle is a separate genre from drum and bass as many use the terms interchangeably...

-style drum and bass

Drum and bass

Drum and bass is a type of electronic music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy bass and sub-bass lines...

, bhangra, dub

Dub music

Dub is a genre of music which grew out of reggae music in the 1960s, and is commonly considered a subgenre, though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae...

, breakbeat

Breakbeat

In 1992, a new style called "jungalistic hardcore" emerged, and for many ravers it was too funky to dance to. Josh Lawford of Ravescene prophesied that the breakbeat was "the death-knell of rave" because the ever changing drumbeat patterns of breakbeat music didn't allow for the same zoned out,...

 and punkish

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 guitars with politically and socially conscious rapped

Rapping

Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...

 lyrics.

The lyrics railed against racism

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

, both in life and the "institutional racism

Institutional racism

Institutional racism describes any kind of system of inequality based on race. It can occur in institutions such as public government bodies, private business corporations , and universities . The term was coined by Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael in the late 1960s...

" highlighted by the murder of Stephen Lawrence

Stephen Lawrence

Stephen Lawrence was a black British teenager from Eltham, southeast London, who was stabbed to death while waiting for a bus on the evening of 22 April 1993....

. It also drew on the history of the Indian Subcontinent, with Naxalite based on the Naxalite

Naxalite

The word Naxal, Naxalite or Naksalvadi is a generic term used to refer to various militant Communist groups operating in different parts of India under different organizational envelopes...

 peasant uprising in West Bengal

West Bengal

West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...

 in the 1960s.

They also dealt with contemporary issues: Free Satpal Ram campaigned for the release of Satpal Ram

Satpal Ram

Satpal Ram is a British man of Asian descent who was charged and convicted of killing another man named Clarke Pearce in Birmingham, England during a fight in 1986...

 from British jail (a cause also taken up by bands such as Primal Scream

Primal Scream

Primal Scream are a Scottish alternative rock band originally formed in 1982 in Glasgow by Bobby Gillespie and Jim Beattie and now based in London. The current lineup consists of Gillespie, Andrew Innes , Martin Duffy , and Darrin Mooney...

), and highlighted (alleged) miscarriages of justice in the British system in general: "Birmingham Six

Birmingham Six

The Birmingham Six were six men—Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Joseph Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker—sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 in the United Kingdom for the Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and quashed by the Court of...

, Bridgewater Four

Bridgewater Four

The Bridgewater Four was the collective name given to the quartet of men who were tried and found guilty of killing 13 year old paperboy Carl Bridgewater, who was shot in the head at close range. After 18 years their convictions were overturned...

, Crown Prosecution

Crown Prosecution Service

The Crown Prosecution Service, or CPS, is a non-ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for public prosecutions of people charged with criminal offences in England and Wales. Its role is similar to that of the longer-established Crown Office in Scotland, and the...

 totting up the score / Kings Cross Two, Guildford Four

Guildford Four

The Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven were two sets of people whose convictions in English courts for the Guildford pub bombings in the 1970s were eventually quashed...

, Winston Silcott

Winston Silcott

Winston Silcott is a British man of Afro-Caribbean descent, who, as one of the "Tottenham Three", was convicted in March 1987 for the murder of PC Keith Blakelock on the night of 6 October 1985 during the Broadwater Farm riot in north London...

, how many more?" Elsewhere, they highlighted issues like the increasing spread of CCTV

Closed-circuit television

Closed-circuit television is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors....

 cameras, 'Black White' promotes inter-racial relationships, while 'Operation Eagle Lie' alleges racist policing to be commonplace - "a black man on a double-yellow, yea he's a criminal / a racial attack, investigation minimal".

The album was shortlisted for the 1998 Mercury Music Prize.

Rafi in the title is a reference to the late Mohammed Rafi

Mohammed Rafi

Mohammad Rafi , was an Indian playback singer whose career spanned four decades. He was awarded National Award and 6 Filmfare Awards. In 1967, he was honoured with the Padma Shri awarded by the Government of India....

, a Bollywood playback singer.

Track listing

1. "Naxalite" 4:42
2. "Buzzin" 4:29
3. "Black White" 3:34
4. "Assassin" 4:01
5. "Hypocrite" 4:00
6. "Charge" 3:37
7. "Free Satpal Ram" 3:44
8. "Dub Mentality" 4:27
9. "Culture Move" 4:30
10. "Operation Eagle Lie" 3:21
11. "Change" 3:08
12. "Tribute to John Stevens" 5:14
13. "R.A.F.I." (Japanese Bonus Track) 3:29
14. "Digital Underclass" (Japanese Bonus Track) 4:49

In the media

Culture Move is the base for a scene of Shameless

Shameless

Shameless is a British television drama series set in Manchester on the fictional Chatsworth council estate. Produced by Company Pictures for Channel 4, the first seven-episode series aired weekly on Tuesday nights at 10pm from 13 January 2004...

 (season 5, episode 13). Yvonne, who converted to Islam and is more devout than her husband, interrupts a backyard night party yelling "Another complaint!", to which the partygoers (mostly her son's friends, of Pakistani origin) respond by turning down the volume. She then proceeds yelling the reason for the complaint as the music being "Too ethnic!", crosses the yard and turns up the stereo volume to the max, yelling "Fascist cunts!", and the party proceeds.