AKASA: ‘Punjabi Music Has Always Been Five Or Six Years Ahead Of The Rest Of India’ (EXCLUSIVE)

AKASA’s having a moment in the Hindi film industry. She is the voice in the first songs for “Cocktail 2,” “Baby Do Die Do” and “Alpha,” and while none of the songs betray it, she wears her inherent Punjabi-ness with pride. 

Over the past few years, she admits to moving from listening to “a lot of Sidhu Moosewala” to “loving what Karan Aujla and Diljit Dosanjh were dropping one after another.” Changing musical tastes aside, she believes the Punjabi music scene is still as thriving as it ever was, despite the hiccups and controversies plaguing it of late. “I would not say the golden era has passed,” she notes, adding, “You just need to open Instagram to find a lot of young Punjabi artists [doing well].”

She acknowledges, “Maybe the music has changed, but that's also [because of] supply and demand. People listen to Satinder Sartaaj for a certain reason, because he fulfills ‘a certain need.’ They also listen to Karan Aujla for a different reason. Tomorrow, if Aujla starts doing folk songs in the style of, let’s say, an Asa Singh Mastana, they will connect him to that.” 

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AKASA believes the golden era of Punjabi music hasn’t passed, admitting, “Maybe I'm saying it because I'm biased, but, I feel like Punjabi music has always been five or six years ahead of the rest of India, right? So if the best in the game are pausing for a while, let’s give them a year or two as a ‘grace period.’ Their music is still far better than a lot of commercial music coming from Hindi films. They are still your biggest reference tracks after international music. Like if you want something closer to home, it's always a Punjabi song. So no, I don't think the golden era has passed. I think it's just a phase, but the artists emerging right now are freaking sick, and I feel like Punjabi has just taken over. I don't remember singing a song last that didn’t have a couple of Punjabi words. That’s crazy!”

She’s close friends with the lady du jour in Punjabi independent and Hindi film music: Jasmine Sandlas. Point out that she hasn’t mentioned her name once and she retorts, “I feel now [at this point in time] Jasmine cannot be called just Punjabi. She ruled the Punjabi music industry and one day, was like, ‘You know what? I’m not satisfied. I’m going to come rule the Hindi industry as well.’”

Case in point, the all-conquering “Dhurandhar” soundtrack. AKASA avers, “See, ‘Dhurandhar’... it's Shashwat and Jasmine, right? They've co-written the whole thing. Where does she come from? The Punjabi music industry, no? Also, a lot of people don’t know that ‘Shararat' is written and composed by her.”
Commenting on the musical brain drain, she notes, “Maybe a lot of them are giving themselves to the Hindi industry for a bit. We should be blessed with that. But yeah, Punjab needs to keep giving us such artists.”