Wild Wild East and the Character of the Cowboy
A lonesome road stretches ahead, a perfectly-timed tumbleweed passes by. The snuffle and shuffle of a horse rocks the dust on the ground. What sort of music is on the wind? Sunny Jain, a Brooklyn-based percussionist and bandleader, offers one answer. The son of Indian immigrants, raised in Rochester, New York, Jain has inherited and found influences from all over the world in his music. His project Wild Wild East, presented at The Prior Performing Arts Center on March 12, 2026, explores these influences through the lens of the American cowboy.
“American cowboy” is a loaded term, more likely to conjure images of John Wayne, leather boots, and certain political conventions than to evoke Jain’s multicultural wonder. However, the practice of animal herders on ranches come to us from a Mexican tradition, inherited from the equestrian skills of Islamic Spain. The Mexican roles of vaquero and charro are the closest ancestor to the American cowboy. Although the ranch owners that they worked for were ethnically Spanish, many vaqueros and charros were in fact Native Americans. And an estimated 25% of American cowboys were Black men, many formerly enslaved people who had moved West following their emancipation. Yet John Wayne keeps hold of the central image of the cowboy—a paragon of white masculinity, with no room for anyone else.
Jain’s awareness of this tension builds the thesis of his work. The South Asian musician jokes about growing up wanting to play Cowboys and Indians, and being pigeonholed into the role of Indian. “I’m not that kind of Indian,” he chuckles. Yet the awareness of these two labels and their charges in American culture allow him to examine some key motifs and images, and remind him of their blended pasts. As each person who comes to the United States carries diverse histories within their own identities, so too does the country at large. To this end, Wild Wild East uses Punjabi rhythms, jazz melodies, post-rock joy, and a cowboy attitude to explore a modern cowboy myth.
The show begins in 13th-century Rajasthan, in the Thar desert. Jain sets the scene for the audience as his band populates the stage. To introduce not only himself, but his heritage, the show opens with an emphasis on the vocals of Ben Parag and Jain’s percussion. The rest of the band’s droning melodies resemble an orchestra tuning up, or the slow waking of an overture. As each instrument joins in—the guitar, bass guitar, and saxophone—the multicultural tone of the show makes itself known. By the last minute of the song, each instrument is centered around a shared melody, and the performance has begun in earnest.
The next two songs focus on Jain’s Punjabi heritage. What happened in his family’s history between Rajasthan and Punjab is lost to time, but he knows that they had definitely made it to Punjab by the 19th century. Jain discusses Bollywood’s contribution to cowboy movies, affectionately known as Curry Westerns following Italian-made Spaghetti Westerns. His music from this point forward incorporates the specific aesthetics and spirit of the cowboy. In one song on the partition of India and Pakistan, for example, Jain chooses to uplift freedom, independence, and liberation in his expression of the music. This is the first appearance of his signature dhol drum. A double-headed drum worn over the shoulder, a tight hide stretches over each end. Set against the deep color of the wood body, as Jain dances around the stage, it could easily be his steed, carrying him over the musical landscape. He performs a traditional Punjabi rhythm and encourages the audience to get up and dance to celebrate resilience and music during times of political upheaval.
Jain’s parents arrived in the United States in 1970. As he tells it from the stage, their bravery and commitment to building a home in a new country embody boldness far more than a white cowboy with a gun on his hip. His song “The Immigrant Warrior” is for his parents and for all immigrants who commit to building a life through sacrifice. Another song, “Blackwell,” is named for the street he grew up on. Its sweeping melody tinged with 90s angst evokes the bittersweet feelings of nostalgia—sweet, but with a deep emotional cavity at the center.
The cowboy is both a symbol of rebellion and of repression. Within the harsh frameworks of its traditional portrayal, there is little room for revision or negotiation with other lived experiences. Reflecting on the John Wayne cowboy, Jain notes that this persona “is not romantic to me at all [as an idea of America].” Determined to honor the legacies of other versions of the cowboy, Jain reconsiders, redefines, and reclaims the cowboy’s imagery for a new period of revolution and radical independence. This image will be as multifaceted, as culturally informed, as free as Jain himself is. Through Sunny Jain’s music, carrying the mindset of the ideal cowboy and the diversity of the true cowboy, a new image for a new generation comes into view.