From the recent Juno Awards to Coachella 2025, the South Asian music explosion is here – and SiriusXM is front and center with SiriusXM Dhamaka, our new South Asian channel!
Over the past 20 years, North America (particularly Canada) has been host to a plethora of artists whose parents immigrated from countries within the South Asian diaspora of Hindi, Punjabi, Pakistani, South Indian, Bengali and West Indian backgrounds.
These artists were raised with a combination of hip-hop bumping from their cars while at school, and a variety of Bollywood, bhangra or other traditional tunes at home on their parents’ stereos.
To commemorate Canada’s South Asian Heritage Month, throughout May, SiriusXM Canada is highlighting just a few South Asian Canadian music pioneers who inspired many of today’s South Asian hitmakers worldwide.
You can hear them all on SiriusXM Dhamaka!
Did you hear about the Calgary R&B singer who went platinum on his debut album independently in 2004? Now you have! Raghav has continued with his unique blend of Hindi and R&B with many crossover collaborations over the years, including Kardinal Offishall, Redman, Nelly and more.
Hailing from Oakville, this Guyanese-Canadian singer/songwriter broke barriers in the late 2000s not only with Anjulie’s own chart-topping hits (which have recently found new viral fame), but also by writing several American hits (and continuing to) for the likes of Nicki Minaj.
This Punjabi-Pakistani duo from Montreal were already selling out tours in India and Pakistan before pioneering the South Asian/mainstream pop remix – a 2003 remix of Nelly Furtado’s “Powerless”, which led to more collabos with Nelly during JoSH’s continued success to today.
Born in Mangalore and hailing from Ottawa, this award-winning singer had found early success in Bollywood before a chance plane meeting catapulted Shweta to viral fame – a 2013 Hindi mashup of Swedish House Mafia’s “Don’t You Worry Child” with The Piano Guys.
Representing Mississauga and Scarborough, respectively, Blitzkrieg’s hip-hop and Roach’s reggae-rap introduced an entirely new Canadian sound to the UK and Bollywood scenes in the 2010s. They continued this sound together and solo through recent hits in India, Pakistan, and more.
Thanks to our Dhamaka programmer Raoul Juneja for the article – tune in to Dhamaka this month and all year long!
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