Yanchan Rajmohan, identified professionally as Yanchan Produced, is on cloud 9.
“It seems like a dream come true,” he mentioned in an interview with CBC Information about his current Juno nomination.
Whereas an awards nod is an enormous deal to most artists, to Yanchan, this recognition has an added side. He’s nominated for South Asian music recording of the yr, a brand new class for the 2025 Juno Awards, which happen on Sunday.
“I’ve watched the Junos yearly, and to lastly have a class that represents South Asian artists and to be part of this for the primary time … it simply seems like hope to me,” he mentioned.
That recognition comes amid the music’s rising reputation — particularly in Canada. SiriusXM recently announced a brand new South Asian music channel, citing the “huge development of South Asian music in Canada.”
Surrey songwriter Chani Nattan and vocalist Inderpal Moga share the moments main as much as their first Juno nomination. Each artists shall be acting on March 15 for the Junos Plaza Occasion and on the Juno Awards on March 30 at Rogers Enviornment in Vancouver.
In 2023, Warner Music’s Canadian and Indian divisions collectively based 91 North Data, a label meant to support and capitalize on the rise of South Asian artists.
It is since gone on to signal South Asian powerhouses like Jonita Gandhi and Chani Nattan — each of whom are nominated for Junos this yr.
And simply final yr, Indian musician Diljit Dosanjh took to the stage in entrance of 54,000 individuals at Vancouver’s BC Place — the largest-ever Punjabi live performance exterior of India, according to Billboard Canada.
It was a followup to a 2022 sold-out present on the metropolis’s Rogers Enviornment that some B.C. business members pointed to as a seminal moment for South Asian music within the nation.
That affect seems usually on the Junos shortlist. There, artists Karan Aujla, Sukha, AP Dhillon and AR Paisley present up all over the place from fan alternative and single, to album and breakthrough artist of the yr.
However it’s within the new class — created, the Junos defined in an announcement, for a rustic that is turn out to be the “epicentre of South Asian music globally” — that the gathering of expertise is unimaginable to overlook.
Yanchan mentioned their success can proceed to create extra change.
“I am hoping that I can open the doorways,” he mentioned. “Then behind me is an entire military of different gifted musicians, who can comply with their very own path and, , add their very own affect to the business.”
Large Metropolis, Small World54:00We hear from Yanchan, one of many first nominees for a model new JUNO Award.
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Music journalist Jeevan Sangha mentioned this variation has been a very long time coming. That is very true in her province of British Columbia, the place the awards are set to happen and the place AP Dhillon, Karan Aujla and fellow South Asian nominee Jazzy B name residence.
“I am from Surrey, so should you stroll the streets of Surrey, you are going to hear Punjabi music within the streets. It’s totally regular,” she mentioned. “I simply suppose that now, increasingly more persons are getting uncovered to it via programming just like the Junos, the place they get to see it at an award present in a special mild.”
There are a variety of attainable causes for its development. Based on Statistics Canada, the South Asian population in Canada nearly quadrupled between 1996 and 2021. Within the 2021 census, greater than 2.3 million Canadians reported South Asian ethnicity, with massive numbers in Alberta, B.C. and Ontario, the place they characterize 7.1, 9.6 and 10.8 per cent of the population, respectively.
‘Language is not essentially a barrier,’ says journalist
Sangha would not attribute the rise within the music’s reputation simply to individuals of South Asian background. She mentioned the music has gained a foothold all through the nation, probably bolstered by the arrival of streaming.
It is an impact noticed elsewhere: Based on a 2023 year-end report by American music analyst firm Luminate Information, almost 40 per cent of American music listeners reported listening to songs in a non-English language.
It was half of a bigger pattern: Between 2021 and 2022, Luminate reported, there was an 85 per cent improve of songs within the high streaming tracks that originated exterior of the US. That far-reaching sensibility, Sangha mentioned, may very well be bolstering curiosity in South Asian music.
“I might completely say language is not essentially a barrier,” she mentioned of American and Canadian listeners contemplating Punjabi music. “It would even be a hook.”
Nonetheless, whereas the brand new class on the Junos is an effective first step, Sangha mentioned, she has reservations.
“My concern … is this sort of turning right into a bucket the place we are able to put South Asian artists and never have them acknowledged in mainstream classes,” she mentioned.
“I am hoping that that is one step in direction of not needing a South Asian class in any respect and simply seeing, , South Asian artists and artists from all the world over being acknowledged alongside artists that perhaps are extra acquainted to Canadians on the radio.”
Given the truth that South Asian artists are unfold all through the nominations record, Sangha mentioned, that is a minimum of not the case this yr.
For Toronto’s Jonita Gandhi, who can be nominated within the new class and is slated to carry out on the awards, the inclusion is nothing however excellent news. Rising up in Mississauga, Ont., she mentioned, she was usually bullied for her look.
After moving into music, for which she credit streaming for making a broad viewers, it led to a self-acceptance and self-confidence that she mentioned felt unimaginable as a toddler.
However having a class like this might have helped her get there a lot sooner, Gandhi mentioned.
“I undoubtedly would have cherished to see extra individuals like me once I was youthful to form of look as much as and be like, ‘Hey, it is all proper — it is OK to be brown,” she mentioned. “It is OK to be Punjabi and be completely different principally in quite a lot of other ways.'”
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