Diljit Dosanjh is one of India’s biggest stars. Now he’s taking on America.

When I first met Diljit Dosanjh in 2017, he was a rapidly rising star in India. His Hindi film debut, Udta Punjab, was all the rage, only a year after his Sardaar Ji became one of the top-grossing Punjabi films of all time. His single “Do You Know,” a slow jam-esque love song, was an enormous hit. He served as judge of a reality TV singing show and had an international tour in the works. “I have barely begun,” he told me then. “This is nothing.” 

Now, seven years later, the 40-year-old powerhouse is the first musical artist from India to perform on The Tonight Show, entering American homes like few artists from the country have before.  

Dosanjh breaks new ground in cinema and music on the regular, and at a breakneck pace — he’s collaborated with Sia, Saweetie, and more. Almost a year after his Coachella debut, he sold out Vancouver’s BC Place this April — with a 54,000-strong crowd. Dosanjh’s ongoing Dil-Luminati tour is packing venues all across the US.

Dosanjh also stands out beyond entertainment. If you’re familiar with India’s current political climate, you’ll appreciate the boldness of his vehement support for the farmer protests. In an arena that has become increasingly hostile toward outspoken critics, he’s boosted calls from farmers to repeal laws threatening their livelihoods.

Who is this man, who in one performance had The Tonight Show audience totally rapt and Jimmy Fallon backstage speaking Punjabi? And how, from among the scores of talented Indian artists, did he reach this level of success? 

A boy from rural Punjab makes it big

India is a country of film and music dynasties, but Dosanjh hails from a small village without family connections to the entertainment scene.

At only 11 years old, Dosanjh was sent from his village of Dosanjh Kalan to the Punjab city of Ludhiana. There he started his music career singing Sikh religious hymns called kirtans at local Gurdwaras, the Sikh place of worship. Although he left his village, his village never left him. Born Daljit Singh, Diljit adopted Dosanjh as a surname later in life, a sign of pride and a reminder of where his roots lie. 

Thanks to early collaborators who saw the spark of young talent, Dosanjh moved on to embrace Punjabi pop. Diljit remembers shooting his first music video titled “Ishq Da Uda Ada,” which roughly translates to “The ABCs of Love,” at age 17. The video showed Dosanjh learning to speak “pop star” as he appeared on-screen for the very first time. It’s hard to recognize that baby-faced man in the low-budget, early-2000s music video. In my latest interview with him, which took place the day after his Fallon performance, Dosanjh said that kid doesn’t exist anymore. 

Eight years after that first album, Dosanjh starred in his debut film, The Lion of Punjab. In India, visible success in music often acts as a natural pipeline into movie roles where, with luck and talent, artists can find a wider audience and greater fame. 

For those unfamiliar with the expansive cinematic landscape of India, you’ve likely heard of “Bollywood” — but that moniker applies only to Hindi-language cinema. In reality, there are as many film industries in India as there are languages. The Punjabi independent film industry is nearly 90 years old. Calling all Indian movies “Bollywood” is as blasphemous as saying “naan bread” (naan means bread) or using the words “chai tea latte” together in a sentence (chai means tea).

However, Hindi cinema does command a huge audience, if not the largest, in India. In 2016, after 13 years as a successful musician, and five as a major Punjabi movie star, Dosanjh finally stepped into the Bollywood arena. In his first Hindi film, the star-studded Udta Punjab produced by some of the biggest names in Hindi cinema, Dosanjh played a police officer slowly coming to understand the extent of rampant drug use in the state.

Udta Punjab’s director Abhishek Chaubey wanted to cast someone fresh and unexpected. “Diljit’s name came up in conversation and I jumped at it,” he told me. “He was very popular in Punjab and the Indian diaspora abroad and was up and coming into the mainstream consciousness of India as well.”

Dosanjh heard the film was going into production and thought to himself, “This is a film about Punjab. I should be starring in it.” A few days later, the call came, asking him to join. Things like this happen to him a lot, he says. He seems to be a master of manifestation.

Since Udta Punjab, Dosanjh’s popularity has grown in unpredictable and exhilarating ways. Chart-topping albums one after another, umpteen singles, countless leading roles in Punjabi and Hindi films, sold-out concerts in venues around the world, and a growing social media presence that includes a very active YouTube channel. 

Amid all of this, Dosanjh has never lost connection with his music. His most iconic work is lively and soulful, driven by Punjab’s traditional Bhangra beat, born from the hollow of a round drum known as a “dhol.” His efforts to take Punjabi pop international shine through everything from his lyrics to his clothing. “The Punjabi attire is more important to me than the songs I pick for a performance,” Diljit stressed to me.

Last year, Dosanjh became the first Punjabi artist to perform at Coachella. Fans back home couldn’t stop making Instagram reels about this achievement. The spectacle made one thing clear: If there is a stage in the world worth conquering, Dosanjh is working his way toward it.

How he uses his voice in a divided India

Unlike most celebrities in India, Dosanjh has been willing to comment on political issues. In today’s India, speaking out like this is considered a direct and vocal challenge to the ruling government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). One only needs to look at replies on X to see the level of harassment that kind of criticism can engender.

In 2020 and 2021, despite India’s strictly enforced Covid-19 lockdown, the nation witnessed the largest-ever protests organized by farmers, most of whom hailed from Haryana and Punjab, with many coming from a Sikh background like Dosanjh.

Among their demands, the farmers were asking for the revocation of recent Farm Laws passed by the Parliament of India. These laws in essence stand to turn their government-regulated market into an open market, subject to all the competition that implies, but are also an example of the government’s willingness to pass sweeping policies that affect people’s lives. Protests took place all over the country. The movement spread rapidly. Rihanna tweeted about it.

Few celebrity voices from within India had anything to say. But not Dosanjh. He amplified the demonstrations through social media, visited the farmers, and reportedly went as far as to support them monetarily. This gained him fans and adversaries in equal measure. Most severely, he was labeled an anti-national separatist by Kangana Ranaut, a prominent actor-turned-politician. 

The welfare and representation of the Sikh community has always been important to Dosanjh. In an interview, while talking about his 2022 Netflix release Jogi, Dosanjh insisted the journalist refer to the infamous Sikh Massacre of 1984 as genocide. Not riots, genocide. Polite, but stern.

While Dosanjh is willing to get political in his comments, much of his music takes a less weighty tack. “Can’t sing political songs. They’ll send me to prison!” joked Dosanjh when I asked him why that was. On top of Punjabi hip-hop and Bhangra mash-ups, he’s known for easy rhymes with catchy hooks. In “Magic,” he sings about a woman with “eyes like Coca-Cola,” and in “Lover,” he insists, “I am your lover, baby. I can’t recover now that I’ve taken one look at you.”

Much of his newer music depicts a high-flying lifestyle, one more reflective of the American hip-hop scene than his rural Indian roots. He’s got songs with titles like “Caviar,” “Lamborghini,” “High End,” “GOAT,” and “Born to Shine,” the latter two of which he performed on The Tonight Show. 

Dosanjh even has a song dedicated to Rihanna titled “Ri Ri,” where he imagines the pop star decked out in a traditional Patiala suit worn by Punjabi women. He sings about wanting to attend a concert of hers, dressed in traditional Punjabi clothes himself. 

It’s worth digging a little deeper, though, to older songs in his repertoire, where you might be surprised to find a pious undertone. His 2013 album, simply titled “Sikh,” has eight tracks, each dedicated to spirituality and valor. He has also released other softer, more obviously devotional songs. 

“Diljit is a very, very mild-mannered person when you interact with him one-on-one,” Chaubey says. The sentiment is echoed by Imtiaz Ali, the latest Hindi filmmaker to have worked with Dosanjh, for the film Amar Singh Chamkila. The role of Chamkila fit Dosanjh perfectly: a Punjabi musician known for his catchy tunes, raucous lyrics, anti-establishment bent, and deep affection from his fans. Dosanjh “remains basic and simple in his approach,” Imtiaz observes. But don’t let the simplicity fool you, those still waters run way deep.  

Bridging cultures through music — and a sense of humor

Despite film and music industries that generate billions of streams on any given day, Indian culture has little foothold in America. If you’re not yet buying my argument, consider this. My in-laws — suburban, middle class, white New Jerseyites — may have heard of Shah Rukh Khan but couldn’t name one of his films. They know Priyanka Chopra as a Jonas. Regardless of its seemingly enormous success in the West, none of them have either heard of RRR or have one clue what a “Naatu Naatu” is. (If you need to click away from this article to Google now, please just go on, come back quickly, and don’t admit it to anyone).

While the US is a new frontier that Dosanjh has set his sights on, fans in India need not worry. At every new venue, “Punjabi aa gaye” (“Punjabis have arrived”) is Dosanjh’s rallying cry. Dosanjh now serves as an ambassador of Punjabi, and Indian, culture. 

His refrain is heard, too, across his social media. Some of the most popular posts on his page are mini-vlogs he shoots in his free time. One viral video features Dosanjh engaged in friendly banter with Alexa, asking her to play his song, with the device repeatedly failing to understand his Punjabi accent. 

Ever so playfully, the singer exposes how a certain kind of assimilative attitude is required of brown people when we go to America. By speaking naturally to no avail and then adopting the most comical, stereotypical American accent to get the job done, he flips the “outsider” narrative on its head. The virtual assistant tech, much like America, doesn’t know what it’s missing.

I can confidently predict that Dosanjh — and a slew of other talent from India — will bring you an endless stream of vibrant, bass-heavy, dance-friendly, and uncompromisingly accented music and movies in years to come. Maybe you’ve already bought your ticket. But if not, as Dosanjh told me last week: “My answer remains the same. This is nothing. I have barely begun.”