I was featured in an India Today article entitied, “How young musicians are creating a genre of their own,” along with a handful of other desi musicians in the United States. Excerpt below and full article here.
A trumpeter and an original member of Red Baraat, Sonny Singh recounts growing up as a Sikh musician in a largely white Tucson (Arizona). Even though he was sometimes subjected to ‘exotifying’ remarks, Singh says the reception to his Ska band was usually warm. But in a post-9/11 America, when Singh’s rock band Outernational would open for other bands, he was forced to endure slurs and Osama bin Laden jokes. “For me, performing as a brown, turban-wearing Sikh has always felt like a political act,” he says. Almost two decades after starting out, Singh has also embarked on a solo project, where he’s reinterpreting Sikh hymns from his childhood using modern sensibilities.