Here are three things that helped “Brown Munde” cruise to the top, in spite of their deliberate lack of press.ġ) A clutter-breaking music video filled with celebrity cameos AP is just like, ‘It doesn’t feel like the right time.’”
I’m saying, ‘Dude, you know how much I love you, you know how much I’ve spread the word’. “They’re not even letting me interview them. in the UK by regularly playing them on the BBC Asian Network. “So many people were tweeting me, Instagramming me, direct messaging me, going ‘Who are they? Why haven’t you had an interview with them?’,” says British-Indian DJ and radio presenter Bobby Friction who helped break Dhillon and co. Keeping quite at a time when they’re ruling the charts not only in India, but also the UK where they’ve scored multiple chart-toppers on the Asian Music charts is driving up interest in the group. While this may have had the effect of driving up streams on international platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music – where it’s still currently in the top ten – what’s more intriguing is the rappers’ no-press policy. The track was taken down, without explanation, from Indian DSPs, even though it racked up nearly ten million streams on JioSaavn. If anything, the strategy employed by the trio’s label, Run-Up Records, has been a tad unusual. In the era of carefully-constructed and minutely-managed marketing campaigns, “Brown Munde (Brown Boys)” by rappers AP Dhillon, Gurinder Gill and Shinda Kahlon and producer Gminxr (pronounced “G Minor”) has done it the old-fashioned way: it became a smash, as they say in industry jargon,“organically”. It’s a sleeper hit that seemingly came out of nowhere: a Punjabi hip-hop track from Canada released in September 2020 that’s gone on to become the most streamed song on Spotify in India so far in 2021 – with over 65 million plays globally so far.
In this latest piece, Music Ally contributor Amit Gurbaxani explains how a Canadian Punjabi hip-hop song became a huge anthem that united a diaspora all around the world. Singers like Badshah, Diljit Dosanjh, Daler Mehndi, Amrinder Gill and Roshan Prince radiate the poppier side of bhangra made famous in Punjabi films and enjoyed on dance floors at weddings, parties and clubs the world over.Big Bang Music is writing a series of guest columns for Music Ally’s readers to help you understand the latest trends in India. Gurdas Maan continues to produce folk music with traditionally inspired lyrics evoking deep, heartfelt emotions, as do newer artists such as the poet Satinder Sartaaj. Today, of course, the music is still adored in its many forms. Throughout the ‘90s, the likes of Malkit Singh and Jazzy B bolstered this evolving genre, transforming it into the widely recognised sound of northern India enjoyed by Punjabis around the globe. That experiment gave rise to today’s bhangra. Artists there began mixing Western instruments with the classical instruments that made up the backbone of the Punjabi sound, like the dhol, a two-headed drum, as well as the single-stringed tumbi and algozey dual flute. The ‘80s ushered Punjabi folk music into a new era, particularly in the UK. Renowned Punjabi singers such as Kuldeep Manak and, later, Gurdas Maan, would contribute to the growing popularity of these folk tales among Punjabis around the world in the ‘70s and ‘80s. These boliyan, commonly passed down from generation to generation, expressed the breadth of family stories with wit and emotion. Originally named after a type of dance that farmers would perform in celebration of the harvest festival Vaisakhi, bhangra has undergone dramatic change in Punjab, going from local songs and poetry couplets-or boliyan-to a thriving global music industry. Boasting a rich and diverse musical history, the northern Indian state of Punjab is known for its traditional folk and Sufi music styles-but it’s most closely identified with the vibrant, energetic sounds of bhangra.