Sonny Singh

Mar 11

Sonny's first musical outlet as a child growing up in Charlotte, NC was kirtan—Sikh devotional music. Like many Sikh kids, he learned basic harmonium and tabla and would regularly do kirtan at Sikh camps and gurdwaras. His energy shifted to other types of music as he became a more serious musician—ska, reggae, funk, punk rock, bhangra, and more. Over the years, he has shared the stage with many musical icons and heroes and has toured the world as an original member of Red Baraat.

In the winter of 2018, feeling a sense of despair in the wake of white supremacist acts of terror in the US and the rising tide of fascism globally, he started returning to kirtan. Sonny revisited some of the shabads he learned as a child and made short Instagram videos singing them and playing trumpet, dhol, percussion, and harmonium. He found it cathartic to dig back into this rich spiritual-musical tradition that had been bubbling beneath the surface of his creative voice for years.

Soon he started diving into more Gurbani (Sikh devotional poetry) and Sufi poetry and began writing his own music to these beautiful and provocative verses written by Kabir, Guru Arjan, Baba Farid, and Guru Gobind Singh, to name a few. Much of this poetry he sings on the album was written hundreds of years ago, but the message of denouncing tyranny, oppression, and dogmatic ideologies while uplifting Oneness, Divine Love, and radical equality resonates deeply in our current times.

Musically, this is not traditional kirtan in any way, but a sincere attempt to embody the many spiritual, political, and aesthetic elements that have shaped who Sonny is: a bolero-mariachi shabad on one track, a qawwali song with a reggae bass line on another, a bombastic Ghadar Party tribute in Punjabi and Spanish on yet another.

This will be an independent release, funded by a Kickstarter campaign last year that raised funds to cover the costs of recording, mixing, and mastering.

For everything Sonny Singh, visit https://sonnysingh.com.

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