Karan Aujla Wants the Whole World to Hear His Punjabi Pop

In the video for his latest single, “Courtside,” Karan Aujla cruises around Miami’s South Beach in a Rolls-Royce Cullinan wearing Maybach shades and a Richard Mille watch. Flowing in his native tongue over a breezy, bass-heavy beat, Aujla pulls up to Cartier and the Louis Vuitton store in the Design District, then rolls to the Hard Rock Stadium, where he dives into the celebrity who’s who that is the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix. 

“I saw DJ Khaled in there,” the Punjabi-born rapping, singing, and songwriting sensation tells me when I catch up with him trackside in early May. Aujla has just shot some video scenes with the Stake F1 team, who cut the artist a seven-figure sponsorship deal in 2023 after he reached out via IG. 

The Florida sun is playing hide-and-seek with storm clouds before the starting gun, but during a moment of fair weather he whips out his iPhone and shows me some of his DMs back and forth with Timbaland. “I really want to work with him,” Aujla says of the legendary producer. “He uses a lot of Indian instruments in his songs — but in his own style, where it doesn’t even sound like an Indian instrument.”

Creating a unique style has been Aujla’s musical quest from Day One. Raised in northwest India “in the middle of nowhere” before moving to Vancouver as a teenager, Aujla landed on a sound that blends his homeland’s rich musical traditions with the latest pop, hip-hop, and R&B. Today he’s at the forefront of Canada’s surging Punjabi music wave, boasting several billion streams between Spotify and YouTube, and selling out arena tours throughout both Canada and India, with a U.S. and Europe tour kicking off this summer. Along the way, he’s experienced an extreme lifestyle upgrade.

“I love dressing up,” he says, unabashed. “I love buying nice clothes, cars, nice timepieces. I always wanted it, but we didn’t really have the money when we wanted it. Now we’re making it, so we might as well spend it somewhere, you know?” 

Born in 1997 in the rural village of Gurala, Jaskaran Singh Aujla lost both his parents by the age of nine and says he took care of himself for several years before moving to Canada to live with his sisters. Kicked out of school because making music interested him more than going to class, he supported himself as a longshoreman while writing songs for other artists — refusing to quit until the release of his 2018 breakout hit, “Don’t Worry,” a duet with the Punjabi star Gurlez Akhtar. After paying all those dues, Aujla has earned the right to savor his success. “I love living life and just enjoying,” he says. “Yeah, I’m pretty good at doing that.”

He’s also pretty good at making hit songs. Last year Aujla became the first South Asian artist to win the Fan Choice Award at the Junos, an honor he shares with Canadian superstars Avril Lavigne and Justin Bieber. “If you’re dreaming, make sure you dream big,” he said as he accepted the trophy. His upcoming shows in North America and Europe, known as the It Was All a Dream Tour, will begin this July, soon after the release of his third solo album. Aujla’s biggest dream of all is to take modern Punjabi music worldwide and make it the next Afrobeats or K-pop — a sound that can attract people outside the culture to gravitate toward something real. 

India, of course, is not a monolithic place but a vast subcontinent containing 22 official languages, more than 1,000 dialects, and 28 diverse states. “Punjab is a state on the north side, and we speak a different language than the rest of India,” Aujla explains, relaxing in a plush hotel suite overlooking Miami Beach. “There’s a huge Punjabi culture. Punjabi food is different. Punjabi songs are different. We have a drum called a dhol. We have our own keyboard tool called a harmonium. But we don’t use them in every song anymore. We’re trying to flip the sounds and create a fusion.” Within India, Punjabis are often known as hardworking, passionate people who know how to party. 

In the early 2000s, the traditional Punjabi dance music known as bhangra blew up in the U.K.,  home to a Punjabi population almost half a million strong. Jay-Z cosigned the movement when he hopped on a Panjabi MC remix in 2003, scoring a sizable chart hit in the U.S. A few years later, British Asian artist Jay Sean blew up big enough to sign with Cash Money Records and collab with Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj, but most of his biggest songs were recorded in English. 

This time around, the wave is coming from Canada, where the Punjabi population is twice as big as in the U.K. “It’s basically another Punjab,” says Aujla, who was surprised early on to find Canadian Punjabis who don’t speak their native language. “We’re just trying to bring the culture up, educate more people about it,” he says. “Like people know Latin trap or Afrobeats.” 

With more than 1.4 billion people in India and 2 billion South Asians worldwide, the numbers are there to build a major movement. “It’s not gonna happen overnight, but the more we talk about it, the more songs we put out, the great music we do will help it become a thing. I really want Punjabi music to be heard more on the streets,” Aujla says. “Playing in hotel lobbies and cafes. Like, it has to be a normal thing — and cool.”

Working with Indo-Canadian producers like Ikky, Yeah Proof, and Signature by SB, Aujla and a handful of like-minded artists have created a new sound and built a following. He’s also collaborated with American acts from OneRepublic to YG. And while he sprinkles English into his lyrics, he’s determined to stay true to his roots and push theth Punjabi, the pure, authentic form of the language — a traditional rural slang with minimal influence from Hindi and other dialects.

“I don’t want my music to sound like something that’s been done before,” says Aujla, who keeps a guy named Milano on his team to help him bridge the gap. “He doesn’t understand Punjabi, but he knows the culture. Taking him with us, it just helped me create something different. How do we flip these sounds? How do we combine them into something that makes it cooler? Like, if somebody doesn’t understand Punjabi, they could just vibe with the music or the melodies.” 

After leaving Miami, Aujla will return to the luxury villa in Dubai that he now calls home, then spend a week in the little village where he was born. “My parents didn’t even take me to a hospital,” he says. “My mom had the delivery at a house. It’s crazy to think that I come from a village with only 200, 250 houses.” That’s where he says he learned all the morals of life after his parents passed, raising himself as an orphan, pressing his own school uniform every day.

Although Aujla is supposed to be taking a break in Miami, the work never really stops. After our interview, there’s a photographer waiting to shoot promo images for Warner Music Canada. And of course he’s got to complete the music video before leaving town. “Even when I have time off, I’m still working, but at least I’m not writing all the time. The writing process gets kind of heavy, ’cause it’s a lot of thinking.” Still, he loves creating new songs. He compares it to opening a portal — the melodies come from somewhere else and flow through him. His songs tell stories about his life and his people, inspirational stories that are universal enough for everyone to relate to.

Aujla’s success allows him to live the high life, and his fans love seeing him dipped in ice and designer outfits. But there are also drawbacks to success. Gang culture in the Punjabi community has been well-documented, including the alleged extortion of successful artists. “In Canada, yes, and in India — it’s been there always,” Aujla says. “Even the old Punjabi singers were going through it. They went through extortions or gang violence, which makes it really hard for you as an artist. But I feel like it’s getting better now.”

On his 2021 debut album, Bacthafucup, Aujla’s music reflected the rougher side of life, but on more recent work — including the 2023 set Making Memories — he grapples with the responsibility that comes with having such a large audience. “Artists within the culture are trying to make a stand,” he says, “and coming together to keep the violence out of their lyrics.”

He has also made a point of putting aside any rivalries with artists in the booming Canadian Punjabi scene. Aujla has written for Diljit Dosanjh, the 41-year-old O.G. of the movement, reportedly penning the title track of his 2020 album G.O.A.T. in just 10 minutes. During a show in Mumbai last December, Aujla was joined onstage by AP Dhillon — whose 2024 album The Brownprint cemented him as another top Punjabi artist — dispelling social media talk of any tension amongst artists. “Music isn’t a fucking sport,” Dhillon declared. “There is no winner or loser in this game.”

“If we don’t do it now, when else are we gonna do it?” Aujla tells me. “Back in the days even I had a few grudges against some artists — I don’t know over what?” He laughs. “I’m over all that. We’re all from the same place, and I feel like right now we all realized that this is the time to support each other if we want to make it big. ’Cause unity is everything.”

On one of his earlier solo tracks, “Let Em Play,” Aujla sampled the Hollywood Walk of Fame speech where Snoop Dogg famously declared, “I wanna thank me.”  Aujla says he relates to the work ethic, the confidence, the audacity. “When I was back home, I used to listen to a lot of Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent,” he recalls. In recent times, he’s collaborated with Bombay rapper Divine and shared the stage with Hanumankind. “I would definitely say J. Cole is one of the guys that taught me how to write properly,” Aujla adds. “How to flow nicely and fit English words into Punjabi and not sound forced. That’s the main thing. It has to sound natural.”

And of course he named his tour after the timeless Biggie line, “It was all a dream” — the sound of a young man whose whole life is changing because he found a way to tap into his God-given lyrical gifts. Aujla definitely relates to that feeling. 

“Coming from where I come from, I never thought this would be the life that we’re living today,” he says. “I’m very grateful getting all this, especially through music, all the love and support. When I came to Canada, to a totally different country, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. So it was all a dream.” 

That’s the feeling he’s trying to convey on his next album. One thing he doesn’t have yet is a name for the sound that’s taken him so far. “It’s such a hard question, ’cause I don’t even really have a name for this genre yet,” he says. “It’s Punjabi music, sure, but is it pop? Is it folk? Is it rap? We’re getting inspired from different cultures and rooted in our own culture and trying to mix everything together. We still don’t have a name, but when we have it you’ll be the first to know.”

From Rolling Stone US.