Rhythm Machine
At last count, sales of his latest album, OK, were sprinting towards the 100,000 mark. But Talvin Singh, the spiky-haired boy wonder who won UK's prestigious Mercury Music Award, is wary: "I don't want it to become a coffee-table album," he says fiercely.

That's Talvin, who could adopt energy and innovation as his middle names. Based in London with a foot in India, Talvin is today a tabla maestro respected by Indian traditionalists and with a fan following among British youngsters. He isn't being compared to Zakir Hussain as yet but there's a distinct touch, of stretching the boundaries of how the tabla can be played and where it can be played. He plays classical concerts; more recently, he has played at gigs with stars like Madonna and Bjork. He has been "chilling out" through 1999 after releasing OK, but he goes to his recording studio every day to make music. Something's brewing.