"steeped in Sikh devotional themes, with an anthemic Punjabi sound" - NPR Music

boundary-defying Punjabi anthems to uplift & ignite

Brooklyn-based Sonny Singh is celebrated for bold and joyous musical innovation. Introspective and urgent, spiritual and rebellious, Sonny Singh’s music channels ancestral wisdom for our time—a clarion call to love, devotion, and courage in dark times. For the last two decades, Singh gained renown as an original member of the band Red Baraat, performing on stages globally with his fiery trumpet and voice. He embarked on a solo career to explore bold new renderings of Sikh devotional music. In 2022, he released his solo debut Chardi Kala to critical acclaim: “Singh has done that rarest of rare things as a musician—he has actually charted new ground…” (Bhanuj Kappal, Live Mint). His album carved out a new space in the landscape of South Asian and spiritual music: “This is Indian devotional music as Western pop with a trumpet as a driving force. To hear it is to realize there’s not much else like it anywhere” (Bruce Miller, PopMatters).

Now with his second album Sage Warrior, Singh ushers us into altogether new experiences of the sacred through music, poetry, and song. The album, produced by Grammy-nominated Kaveh Rastegar, was created alongside author and civil rights leader Valarie Kaur’s book Sage Warrior. Released in September 2024, Sage Warrior features a virtuosic roster of musicians on guitars, Punjabi and western drums, horns, harmonium, and synths. The result: a rich sonic journey into the world of Sikh music and beyond. At moments, traditional Punjabi rhythms transport us to the riverbanks of Punjab, where Sikh ancestors sang the sacred poems. In the next moment, we are ushered into bold new experiments in global music through soaring trumpets and epic electric guitar-driven melodies. In every track, Sonny’s powerful voice is our guide, as in the words of Annie Mok of Bandcamp Daily: “Singh’s voice arrives, like the breaking of morning sunlight, a bursting open of joy.”

Sonny's first musical outlet as a child of immigrant parents in North Carolina was singing Sikh devotional music in gurdwaras (Sikh houses of worship). His energy shifted to other types of music as he became a more serious musician: ska, reggae, funk, punk rock, bhangra, and more. In 2003, Sonny co-founded the political rock band Outernational and recorded an album produced by Tom Morello. As a singer and trumpet player, he has been central to the sound and raw energy of Red Baraat since the band's inception in 2008, touring globally and recording 5 studio albums.

Sonny’s band has performed at the Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Museum, MASSMoCA, O+ Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), the Lotus World Music Festival, Hamptons Jazz Festival, and The White House (in April 2023). In Fall 2024, Sonny completed a 40+ city national tour, along with author-activist Valarie Kaur, sharing ancestral music and stories of revolutionary love.