As if tea, the Kohinoor diamond, nautch girls and chutney were not enough, Bhangra too has now been incorporated into the British experience.

A Bhangra band from the UK city of Birmingham has been invited to represent multi-cultural Britain at a concert in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

This unique experiment in cross over culture takes place this weekend when Achanak plays at an event sponsored by the British Council in collaboration with Pozitif, the leading music promoters of world music, jazz and soul in Turkey.

It  forms part of 'Soundscape UK', a project to bring about artistic collaboration between Turkish and British musicians.

A spokeswoman for the British Council in Istanbul said: "Achanak are an exciting example of the talented, cutting edge music makers that are coming out of Britain all the time. We know that their style of fusion will be just as well received in Turkey as it has been in the UK and worldwide over the years."

The six-man band, formed in the autumn of 1989, performed at the 2002 Commonwealth Games and has since become widely recognised as a leading exponent of the 'New Wave Bhangra'.

It has also performed at festivals in the USA, Canada, the Netherlands and Germany and all of their albums have won platinum awards, as well as seven prestigious awards in world and ethnic music.

The British Council spokeswoman described Achanak as well known for including social, economic and political themes in their music. 

She added, "Bhangra is the fastest growing music form in the world music market. Brought to the UK from India by the first generation of Indian immigrants, it has been transformed by third generation South Asians into the most explosive
Indian-British music phenomena."