Dressed in a traditional Punjabi folk outfit – a kurta-chadra (kurta and long loincloth) and dastar (turban), the oldest outfit of undivided Punjab, with a pair of Air Jordans and neon yellow gloves — Punjabi popstar Diljit Dosanjh brought out all the stops at last year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival – a significant cultural space that influences music, fashion and popular culture all over the world. The headliners at the premier festival in Palm Springs in the past have included noted names such as Beyonce, Prince, Radiohead and Rage Against the Machine, among others, while the job is with Lady Gaga in 2025.
“Punjabi aa gaye Coachella oye (Punjabis are here in Coachella),” announced Dosanjh upon arrival on the popular world stage. Those present, with limbs pounding and hearts racing, screamed their lungs out in acknowledgement. Dosanjh obliged, stuck to the basics of his music — traditional folk with a contemporary twist — and went on to perform an entirely Punjabi set at a festival with a mostly English-speaking audience as well as bands that performed in English. And just as his song Patiala Peg came on and the party became wild with the beats of the dhol, bhangra was the order of the day, including some steps from Grammy-winning American DJ Diplo, who was at the concert. It was the first time any Indian musician had made it to Coachella with two performances at the double weekender. Interestingly, Vancouver-based Punjabi singer AP Dhillon also performed at the same festival after Dosanjh.
Two Punjabi artistes at Coachella, where no Indian had ever managed to set foot before despite the popularity of a variety of Indian music all over the world, was a watershed moment for Punjabi pop, which found itself at one of the most significant music festivals in the world through two Punjabi artistes. “It was so fantastic to see our people, so many of them, so far away, here in Los Angeles. It felt surreal,” says Dosanjh in a short clip made by his team following the festival.
Punjabi breakout
While his stadium shows in Canada, where he also lives, were sold out in 2024, he also performed at the Late-Night Show with Jimmy Fallon — an international television staple for years. This, for any Punjabi artiste, was a first, too. Then, he collaborated with pop stars Ed Sheeran and Sia, both of whom have been heard singing in Punjabi with Dosanjh. It was also noteworthy that the outfit from the villages of Punjab, along with the beard and turban, representing the Sikh identity that was not considered cool and attractive once, especially outside India, was on the global stage and presented with pride. Dosanjh has added that one layer to the situation. It’s suddenly cool to be a Sardar; it’s okay not to know English and to speak and sing in the language one knows on a global stage. And that nonchalance and confidence in one’s own self and art, and being authentic has really made a difference at a global level in attracting more and more audience to the music and its artiste.
Dosanjh, at this point, leads the pack of a very significant list of global Punjabi musicians, including Dhillon, Karan Aujla, B Praak, Guru Randhawa, Shubh Gill and Jassie Gill, among others, who are responsible for the rocketing rise of Punjabi pop which has finally found its pivotal moment as it successfully transcends boundaries to become one of Subcontinent’s most significant export.
While Dosanjh is busy breaking barriers, the writer of some of his songs like G.O.A.T and Born to Shine — Dubai-based Aujla — originally from Ghurala in Punjab also won two Junos (considered the Canadian Grammys) from the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. While one was for being the ‘Breakthrough Artist of the Year’, the other was the Audience Choice Award, which has previously gone to the likes of Avril Lavigne, Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes, among others. It also marked another first — it made Aujla the only Punjabi artiste to land a Juno ever.
Drawing from age-old folk tunes and traditional motifs paired with contemporary influences, the wave that is Punjabi pop has finally found its pivotal moment as it successfully transcends boundaries to become the subcontinent’s most significant export
As for Dhillon, he is packing stadiums in India, the U.S. and Canada and has found many fans in Pakistan and Bangladesh with a combination of his trap beats and catchy lyrics. Dhillon performed at the Juno Awards besides a performance at the Women’s Hockey League. Dhillon’s success – the record-breaking crowds, the unabated buzz, Bollywood celebs such as Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt attending his concerts, and a star-studded premiere of the Prime documentary including a quick trip by actor Salman Khan – has become an ever-multiplying phenomenon, something that even Dhillon wouldn’t have thought of when he started putting out music in Majha Punjabi, the language of his village Mullianwal in Punjab’s Gurdaspur, three years ago.
What’s also interesting is that the mechanics of the music industry with its record labels, A&R (Artiste & Repertoire) managers, contracts, and money games did not apply here. He put out music on YouTube, earned money, and organised shows with the same money, pretty much cutting out the middlemen. “Many, including AP Dhillon, don’t speak to labels. They directly deal with streaming platforms now,” says Satvinder Singh Kohli, managing director of Punjab-based Speed Records.
In 2022, Pasoori (Conflict) by Ali Sethi (Coke Studio Pakistan), one that spoke of estranged lovers and forces that keep them apart in Punjabi and Urdu and one that continues to have the world bonding over its pulsating rhythms, became a global chart-topper.
According to Spotify’s global report, Punjabi music is one of the fastest-growing genres on the platform. In 2023, the number of listeners of Punjabi music on Spotify increased by 87 per cent year-on-year. Spotify royalties for artists from Punjabi also saw a growth of 271 percent. And what has worked? The music draws extensively from age-old folk tunes and traditional motifs, paired with contemporary influences. There is hip-hop and elements of rock besides pianos and guitars used alongside dhol and tumbi, making the current sound recognisable for a global audience yet retaining a certain distinctness.
But this global impact of Punjabi music, which seems all-encompassing at this point with its infectious rhythms and catchy melodies cutting across linguistic barriers, has not come about in the last few years. Behind the current pinnacle is a lot of work put in by a slew of artistes.
Beginnings in Britain
While in India musicians like Surinder Kaur, Asa Singh Mastana and later Gurdas Mann were performing traditional folk traditionally, things changed when some of the artistes moved away from the country. In the late 1950s, in the aftermath of World War II, two teenaged brothers — Dalbir and Balbir Singh — made their way from Khanpur, Punjab, to a West Midlands foundry in the UK. As labourers in the cast-iron factory, they had the monotonous job of melting metal. So, at work, they’d often break out into folk songs and people in the factory would gather to listen. Over time, the Punjabi community in the area called them bhujhangy, meaning children. Soon, the brothers recorded an EP and appeared on television in 1969 for Guru Nanak Dev’s 500th birthday. They called themselves the Bhujhangy Group, and their song, Bhabiye ankh lad gayi, became extremely popular among the diaspora. They combined the sounds of traditional folk songs with accordion, guitar and banjo, and became one of the foremost pioneers of bhangra in Britain.
This was the time when many immigrants were grappling with questions of identity. So, the music they created echoed their lives – which is where the traditional was combined with Western music. There were Bally Sagoo and Apache Indian, trying on new things. Also, Channi Singh. The motifs were mainly love, loss and stories of Punjabi community. Punjabi MC’s Mundeyaan toh bach ke rahin and Kangana by Dr Zeus were everywhere at the turn of the century and had a world audience bonding over it on the dance floor. It was British bhangra music that married the two cultures.
The current crop of international Punjabi stars have put their own twist to the Punjabi music they have grown up with and made the music slicker than it has ever been. As for the themes, older motifs in songs – about births and weddings, village and military life – that once dominated the folk music space have been replaced. While there has been that loss of innocence and its replacement with a certain aggressive culture buoyed by the internet and some musicians from Punjab, there are also some who are talking about socio-political problems and pressures the community is dealing with.
The global rise of Punjabi pop has a clear arc—it has risen as and when the artistes have pushed the boundaries and grappled with the idea of who they are and where they want to go. The sound is in place and is constantly being experimented with—in the tinny studios of Kapurthala and Ludhiana to the hi-tech ones in Mohali and those in Canada. The music is in sports arenas, dance floors, and world music festivals. It will continue to rise as long as it keeps true to its roots and attempts to go out of the box with those roots in tow.
