New Delhi, India - A quiet, unassuming Tibetan monk who wants to spread "good karma" across the world is in the running for next week's Grammy awards for an album of a dozen Buddhist religious hymns accompanied only by the clash of gong and cymbals.
Ngawang Tashi Bapu, 38, hails from a yak-grazing family in remote Thembang village in northeast India and says he had "never dreamed of getting such an award". Bapu's album, Tibetan Master Chants, has been nominated in the Best Traditional World Music category in the Grammy awards to be announced in Los Angeles on February 8.
Tibetan chants have been increasingly fashionable in America and last year a selection of chants and meditation prayers by a group of monks won a Grammy. But Bapu, who has sung with REM's Michael Stipe, Sheryl Crow and Patti Smith, is the first solo monk artist to be nominated. "My record was released in the US last year and has become a hit," said Bapu, known for having perfected the Tibetan "deep voice", a technique used in prayer.