Front Burner - Grief, outrage after killing of Punjabi music icon Sidhu Moose Wala

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

The wildly popular Punjabi artist Sidhu Moose Wala was a pioneer in his genre, fusing traditional folk sounds with contemporary rap and trap music. Sidhu shaped his career in Brampton, Ont., calling the city his second home. Through his rich, soul-filled melodies, and his socially conscious and sometimes politically charged lyrics, he gave Punjab's youth, and the youth of the Punjabi diaspora, a new way to connect to their roots. On Sunday, Sidhu was gunned down near his family's home in his home state of Punjab. There has since been an outpouring of grief and anger. Today, Jaskaran Sandhu, co-founder of Baaz News, takes us through Sidhu's life, legacy and the questions surrounding his death.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey, I'm Jamie Poisson. So today we're talking about a Punjabi music icon shot down in his prime near his family's home in India. He went by Sidhu, shaped his career right here

in Canada, in Brampton, Ontario. He called the city his second home. Sidhu was a pioneer in Punjabi music, fusing traditional folk sounds with contemporary rap and trap music. Through his rich, soul-filled melodies, his socially conscious and sometimes politically charged lyrics. He gave Punjab's youth and the youth of the Punjabi diaspora all over the world a new way to connect with their roots. Sidhu Musiala is a legend. He's an absolute legend and people in Canada should know who he is. He really was living the Canadian dream that so many people have to come from one country in search of a better future to another country and then actually find that success. That's Tesher, a Canadian Indian artist behind the massive hit Jalebi Baby.

He spoke to our producer Simi about Sidhu and what it was like to see him perform live. It's the equivalent of seeing Drake at OVO Fest. He has such a strong hold on people, almost like a cult following, that everybody welcomes him to their city as if it's his city. The show that I had seen him at, when I tell you, the place was so loud when he came out. And I think everybody really felt that he was one of them. He felt like a friend. This is Tesher's favorite Sidhu Muswala line.

I thought he had the sickest catchphrase ever, which was, which means, from the heart, he's not bad. You're Sidhu Musial. And basically, you know, he's saying that above it all, no matter what I'm doing, I'm just, I'm me. You know, I'm a humble guy. I've come from humble beginnings. There's so many videos on the internet of people just screaming, Diladani Mada, Dera Sidhu Sehala! Sidhu's contributions, they went beyond music. Touted as a youth icon, the 28-year-old ran for Congress in his home state but was defeated. He had just

begun a controversial political career in his home state of Punjab before he was gunned down on Sunday just outside his family's village. His murder has triggered grief, anger, even protests across the state. This is Congress workers who are protesting outside the Ahmadni Party's office in Jammu, demanding action from the Ahmadni Party. It has also left people with a lot of questions about what happened and why the life of this young artist was cut short. Today, I'm talking to Jeskaran Sandhu, co-founder of Baaz News, on Sidhu's life and his legacy.

Sidhu Musawala, over the last five years or so, can arguably be one of the top Punjabi music artists. Punjabi music is probably, if not the most influential, one of the most influential genres of music in South Asia and elsewhere around the world. So it made Sidhu very larger than life and holding that type of position within the industry. His music videos get millions of views. I think he was probably one of the top performing artists on Spotify amongst the Punjabi music industry. So this was someone that had a considerable, considerable following. And give me a sense of who he was through his stage name. What's the meaning behind it? Yeah, so Sidhu Musewala.

So Sidhu is, so it's a last name that is very common amongst folks of Punjabi background. And Musewala. So Moose is a reference to the name of his village. In Punjabi culture, the village you hail from is steeped within a lot of history, a lot of history within both Punjabi identity and Sikh identity. And so that reference to his villages is very important a part of who he was and what anchored a lot of his his lyrics and his work and wala just means like in this in this instance it just means to be of or from so just means sidhu from the village of musa right and from that you

you actually do get a very uh clean of what drove Sidhu and his art. And then there's this Canadian connection, of course, as well, right? He moved to Brampton in his early 20s to study engineering, which is where his music career really began. And so how did moving to Brampton really define his life and his career as well? Yeah, look, Sidhu's trajectory is such a great reflection of modern day kind of immigration into Canada from Punjab. Coming as an international student, you know, made him connect with a very large ecosystem. And then once he got into Brampton, which is, for all intents and purposes, the capital of the Punjabi diaspora within Canada. Now, folks in Surrey may argue with me,

but as a Brampton man, I would suggest that Brampton is the capital of the Punjabi diaspora in this country and probably one of the most important global Punjabi cities. He lands in the city at a time when the local music scene is also erupting, like the local Punjabi music scene. And it's not, you know, like Sidhu was an overnight success. You know, if you go look back when he was younger, he had a love for music. He used to sing often. Folks in his village will speak about how he used to write lyrics at a young age. So there's a longer journey here. But it's when he comes to Brampton that he connects with producers and rappers here locally

that give his voice the sound that propels him to essentially a rock star status. And tell me like a little bit more about his music. What was it about his music that people really connected to? You know, he was able to combine two different elements in a way that was fairly novel, you know, five years ago when he first achieved success. And it was a combination of like traditional Punjabi musical traditions. Both folk and Bhangra. Right, like, you know, and pop elements that exist already in Punjabi music at the time. And, you know, that rap and hip hop culture and, you know, themes. And he combines the two in a way that really made him stand apart from the rest.

And the other component to all of this is that Sidhu himself was a master lyricist. He's probably as well recognized as a lyrical genius. He was able to capture a lot of, you know, different societal issues, right? of societal issues, right? And he was able to capture and describe them in ways that didn't rely on traditional, like, cliches and tropes and themes. And it was very raw. His style was very raw. He was also incredibly creative in the way that he would

string together uh his rhymes right how he would string together uh you know layers within like a story that he was trying to tell uh which was which is very important and let's say folk punjabi music uh whether it was about family you know know, he sang about depression, he sang about the state of Punjab itself, like the societal issues that exist. You know, he sang about, you know, fighting against the odds. He sang about oppression. He sang about rebellion. And so a lot of themes that are actually very familiar to folks who listen to hip hop, you know, that kind of angst that exists in society uh and trying to figure out how do you uplift your people uh through all of it

i understand he was a big fan of Tupac. And some of his fans are even drawing comparisons between the two. And like, why? What are they saying? Siddharth was never shy from referencing Tupac. And you'll see it like in the title of his songs and some of his demeanors and even maybe like a little bit of the lyrical style. And I think a lot of the underpinnings of how kind of Tupac carried himself as well as someone that wasn't afraid to call out powers that be, that wasn't afraid to be very abrasive in doing so, very unapologetic in doing so. You mentioned his lyrics spoke truth to power, right? And beyond music, he even ran for office in Punjab. And why was that run considered controversial?

Yeah, and full disclosure, I was one of those people who was very disappointed in Sidhu when he chose to run for the Congress party. A lot of folks were disappointed because when you, when you go back to like the lyrics and what he sang about, you know, he sang about again, rebellion. He sang about calling about a different oppressive kind of systems at play. He sang about revolution. He sang about sovereignty. He then joins the establishment party who has a very spotty history with the

local Sikh Punjabi community of which he belonged to. And for a lot of folks that didn't, it just didn't jive like that. That was like such a lack of consistency between who he was as an artist and his choice that he made politically. And he tried to explain it by saying, this is the establishment party, but the opposition is so broken that this is my best bet into getting into

government and then bringing investments in to my district, to my village, which was, you know, relatively speaking, not like a fluent or wealthy part of Punjab. The experiment with politics was an absolute flop. Like he lost. He did lose support because of it. I wonder if it's worth noting here, talking about how he is, he's from Mansa, which is this part of

Punjab that was really impacted by the farmer protests. Tens of thousands of farmers have taken to the streets in India. Met by water cannons, police blockades and tear gas. New laws deregulating the sector passed by the Indian government in September sparked the protests. Farmers fear the removal of guaranteed prices and other free market moves will destroy small landowners.

And he actually released this song that would become an anthem for that movement. That song was a song of revolution. It was a song about sovereignty. He actually opens the song and ends the song with speeches from folks that were vocal advocates for Sikh sovereignty, for what is known as the Kalsaraj, for what is known as Khalistan, like a Sikh separate state. six separate states. And so he wasn't afraid to talk about those

issues, to talk about those themes. And that's one of those things where it's like, you know, Sidhu, you're singing about these things, you're from a region that is hurting because of the establishment, and now fast forward a couple of months later, you're running for Congress. This doesn't make sense.

Either you were never sincere in your music before, or you're just incredibly naive about politics and electoral politics in Punjab, or it's none of the above and just none of it makes sense. job, or it's none of the above and just none of it makes sense. You know, he would later, after running for politics and failing in politics, what he would say is that it probably leaned on the side of just being naive, miscalculating or misunderstanding what was actually needed to bring about the change he sang about. And so that was something that I think a lot of people struggled kind of understanding in the end. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem.

Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast,

Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Let's talk about his death now because it is too proving to be controversial. So he was killed near his family's home in India. He was shot 24 times, according to the autopsy. And what are police there saying about what happened? So the police story is, and I'll mind you, in India, this shifts regularly and rapidly. So as we speak about it, this may be changing. Having said that, the consensus amongst authorities is that this was gang related, which both the family doesn't accept. And I think his fans obviously don't accept. General society doesn't seem to accept. And opposition political parties, some of them at least, don't accept either.

So then these groups that don't accept the police narrative, what do they think happened? So there's one part of the critique and kind of understanding the authorities' position on this is that just a couple of days before Sidhu's murder, the state governments and the Aam Aadmi Party, which won that state election that Sidhu was involved with on the Congress side, pulled back security detail for a whole host of people abruptly. But then they also made it public, either through a leak intentionally or unintentionally, it was made public that, you know, here's a list of folks that have had their security details removed. So immediately putting a lot of them into jeopardy.

So Sidhu Musawal was a name on that list. The second piece is Sidhu in the last few days, in the last week or so, in the last week or so, had become much more vocal about Sikh and Punjabi politics that aligned more closely with a lot of elements in his music and who he usually would describe himself. So he started openly talking about Khalistan, right, a Sikh separate state. He started openly talking about, you know, themes of Sikh. He started openly talking about themes of Sikh sovereignty. And so for a lot of folks associated with that movement or sympathetic to the movement feel that this was not just a murder, this was an assassination. And then finally, if you talk

to the family, the folks that would be around Sidhu all the time, now Sidhu was very close with his family and he sang about his family often he sang about his mother often he would reference his father and his music he actually farmed the land still he lived with his family still and so the family all said sidhu was never involved with anything gang related and again there's a common trope in India is when someone of high profile gets murdered, it's immediately labeled as gang warfare. Whether that's true or not is up to folks to kind of figure out on their own, because there's never much follow up after the claim or accusation is made. The consensus is that the official line from authorities is probably not the truth.

That's the more general prevailing popular consensus. And I understand the reaction in India to his death has been like really intense, right? Like there are protests and... Yeah, there's been vigils, there's been marches. His funeral was attended by thousands. This has become like major breaking news in India. It's very similar to when Tupac and Biggie were killed. Iconic rapper Tupac Shakur was shot here in Las Vegas.

The rapper was shot inside of a BMW while stopped at a red light on Koval and Flamingo. And that these, you know, Sidhu was a cultural icon who sang about very heavy topics. And it had a huge fan base outside of Punjab as well. Like he had a lot of love all over the world. There was actually vigils held here in Canada too. This vigil was held Sunday in Surrey, BC. Together we are here praying for his soul. But then there was a lot of political opportunism as well, right?

So the opposition was very quick to call out Ahmad Ali Party and say, you guys play politics with people's lives. The allegation was that here was a man who definitely had a threat to his life. He was on a hit list. And despite that fact, his security was pared down. You know, releasing the security detail without doing a further analysis before doing so. You guys release the list. You make political hay out of it. And because of that, someone died. So there's a lot of lot of political pressure as well, that's being applied to the Almohadwi party by all opposition parties. And then you have this whole, you know, you have the whole Khalistan or Sikh sovereignty angle as well. What, you know, for India, which is, you know, Hindu, strong Hindu majority India,

you know, they're obviously very wary of that. And they're very wary of conversations around Sikh sovereignty. So you have so many different, so many different themes kind of intersecting with each other, which has caused this to be a like headline story now for multiple days. Jessica, it was so great that you could come on and tell us all about this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for this. I appreciate it.

He was his most authentic self in his music. He was his most authentic self in his music. So for me, it was just another reminder and another big inspiration that you can stick to your roots, be yourself and show your culture in your music and still garner an audience that is a world audience, even if they don't understand the lyrics and the language all the time. It is in Canada where he ended up finding, you know, the people that were able to help him realize this music dream and see the success that he ended up seeing. So he really is, you know, as much of an Indian success story as he is a Canadian success story. success story as he is a Canadian success story. All right. So to end the show today, we are going to play you out with the song B-Town, which is actually the song that Sidhu Musvala wrote about Brampton, Ontario. Outro Music For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.