Why Punjabi rap is layered with violence
Pop culture genre’s ascent to mainstream popularity unveils a complex narrative
Punjabi music is having its moment in the sun. When singer Diljeet Dosanjh brought the house down at a recent Ed Sheeran concert, it was only a small sample of its mass global appeal. The rise of this pop culture genre has given its singers a cult following and their words are followed as closely as their actions, making even a single misstep jarring.
Two years ago, the biggest name in Punjabi music, Sidhu Moosewala was gunned down near his home — more than 20 bullets were pumped into his body. His music was dark and controversial and yet his songs were widely heard beyond his hometown. Moosewala had police cases against him for promoting gun culture and possessing unlicensed weapons, including firing an AK47. By and large, in the obituaries, his affinity to guns and violence was overlooked.
Does a violent song encourage its listeners to indulge in aggression? In social media-driven exposure, the answer is no longer black or white. Matters are further complicated in Punjab where drugs have ruined generations and joblessness has forced those who can afford it to immigrate to Canada and the UK. Others use the illegal donkey route. Either way, there has been an exodus of able youth to foreign lands.
Canada’s city of Brampton has a flourishing production and music recording business with Punjabi labels. But it is also home to gang wars. The alleged mastermind of the Moosewala killing, Goldy Brar, is Canada-based. Unfortunately, despite being a successful music industry, it has not been able to remain isolated from the violence and extortion that resurfaces periodically, publicly.
One of the first instances was the 15-year-old unsolved murder of one of Punjab’s most famous stage singers Amar Singh Chamkila. Five years ago, singer Navjot Singh was murdered, and Moosewala was another tragedy that has its roots in everything but music.
Historically, Punjab’s revolutionary past has always been part of its ethos, one that gave rise to a band of men whose masculinity kept plunderers at bay while defending their land. The generation of singers and their listeners, straddling farmlands, and the diaspora from Brampton to Birmingham, want more: a fusion of Jattdominated caste identity with its patriarchal strains and unabashed promotion of violence.
Punjabi rap — that Moosewala was credited for popularising — functions on the surmise of the larger hip-hop scene that glorifies guns, money and toxic misogyny. Music videos take it up a notch, Dosanjh aims a gun straight at a viewer in a song, a singer refers to himself as the local version of the druglord Pablo Escobar and many lesserknown lyrics brazenly eulogise entitlement and weapons in a state that was once held hostage to guns and terror.
Moral policing through a ban is uncalled for when the ecosystem is in itself compromised. Why are only Punjabi singers layering their songs with themes of violence, why is it missing in other desi beats?
In that question could lie many answers.