From Prairies to Bollywood: Record deal shows power of TikTok to get diverse artists noticed

“I hadn’t promoted it. It had simply spontaneously occurred,” mentioned Sharma, who goes by the stage title Tesher. 

Sharma’s remix of Previous City Highway by Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus, with Ramta Jogi from the Bollywood movie Taal, had gone viral. 

That led individuals to find his catalogue, together with Younger Shahrukh, a music impressed by Shah Rukh Khan, the Indian actor generally known as the King of Bollywood. Sharma had written, rapped and produced the music alone on a whim in his Toronto condo.

“Individuals had been utilizing it to make make-up tutorials, dance movies … they had been displaying off their outfits. They had been making gaming montages — you title it. It was all around the platform,” mentioned Sharma. 

Quickly, Younger Shahrukh had about a million views on YouTube, SoundCloud and Spotify. 

That is when Sony Music India got here calling. It launched Younger Shahrukh on the label. It was Sharma’s first huge report and claimed the #1 spot on the BBC Asian Music Chart. 

As of this March, Younger Shahrukh has had over 20 million views throughout YouTube.

Sharma is a part of a wave of up-and-coming South Asian-Canadian musicians that are not simply impressed by Bollywood, however a combination of musical types introduced on by their upbringing, their location and Western influences. He is additionally one in all a number of musicians to get widespread consideration and success from TikTok, because the app helps artists from numerous cultural and musical backgrounds break into the mainstream.

WATCH | Musician Tesher explains how he made his hit Younger Shahrukh:

Early beginnings  

Sharma’s love for remixes that toy with Bollywood started at an early age. 

In Regina, the place he was raised and is presently dwelling throughout the pandemic, he started performing for crowds as younger as 12 years previous. Sharma’s father, a videographer, would report weddings, birthdays and events for members of the town’s South Asian group, and would advocate his son to do the DJing. 

“That type of received me much more into that zone of looking for a approach that I cannot solely appease the Indian crowd, but in addition combine within the music that I am listening to and enchantment to individuals which have been like me, which have grown up right here with the music that’s fashionable within the Western world.”

Sharma grew up listening to the whole lot from Bollywood and Punjabi Bhangra music to Kanye West and Jay-Z to nation music by artists like Eric Church, Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton.

“And all these influences got here collectively to type of inform the type of music that I make.”

World music on the Western stage

For a very long time, the time period “world music’ was used to label practically the whole lot that did not come from a British or North American musical custom.

“However now issues have began to vary,” mentioned Sharma.

“As a result of now, in 2021, we have heard a lot, it is time to begin borrowing from different cultures and different influences, and I feel it is simply pure. That is the way in which the music evolves.” 

Sathish Bala, the CEO and founding father of DesiFest, an annual South Asian music competition in Toronto, factors to a significant cultural milestone being the 2009 movie Slumdog Millionaire.

“When it got here out, it had a really attention-grabbing soundtrack that no person was used to: the mix of EDM and hip hop beats into South Asian music.” 

“We began to see these little moments of imaginative and prescient into what our tradition is as inspiration,” mentioned Bala. “However there is no blueprint. The South Asian impartial artist scene in North America is … very younger.” 

Now coming into its fifteenth yr, DesiFest has grown by leaps and bounds alongside Canada’s roster of South Asian musicians.

“It was solely within the final 10 years the place we began to see the rise of the impartial artists, folks that had been creating content material that wasn’t for the [Bollywood] motion pictures,” Bala mentioned. 

Going viral

TikTok can be taking part in an element in getting South Asian musicians publicity.

“The algorithm undoubtedly is slightly little bit of a thriller, however anyone can go viral on that platform proper now, and in order that’s undoubtedly a bonus. Everyone can be that display screen,” Sharma mentioned. 

Platforms like YouTube and Instagram are crammed with accounts with large followings and model partnerships. This may make it troublesome for lesser recognized artists to compete, mentioned Sharma.

However TikTok continues to be comparatively new. 

“I feel the benefit of TikTok is it is type of the wild, wild west proper now. There’s much less obstacles to entry,” mentioned Sharma.

Like Sharma, South Asian-Canadian musician Jonita Gandhi’s skilled music profession began on-line.

Gandhi, who now lives in Bombay, India, started making YouTube cowl songs in collaboration with American composer Aakash Gandhi when she was 17 years previous. The movies rapidly went viral. 

“I feel on the time it was type of novel for me to be doing that as a result of there weren’t that many South Asians who had been type of placing content material out on YouTube,” Gandhi mentioned.

“It type of served as like a demo reel.”

Gandhi grew up within the higher Toronto space and lived there till her success on the platform received the eye of Bollywood. She then moved to India and commenced a profession as a playback singer, a performer whose singing is pre-recorded to be used in Bollywood movies. 

Since then, Gandhi has labored with the likes of A.R. Rahman, the Oscar and Grammy award-winning composer and musician, maybe greatest recognized in North America for his rating for Slumdog Millionaire. 

“As a result of I grew up in Canada, I really feel like I’ve a novel perspective and many alternative musical influences that I am now making an attempt to mix in my music and symbolize somebody who’s not simply Indian but in addition an Indo-Canadian,” mentioned Gandhi. 

Not too long ago she was at a celebration the place buddies had been gushing about Tesher — and that he is Canadian.

“And I used to be like, ‘Yeah! I am so joyful! Signify!’ I really feel like we’re taking on.”

Going mainstream

A yr after his preliminary success with Younger Shahrukh, Sharma is tough at work on what’s to return subsequent — one thing he isn’t keen to reveal proper now. 

He’s assured that Indian languages and South Asian musical influences will break into Western fashionable music charts. 

“Spanish music goes huge as a result of they’ve the co-sign of artists like Cardi B and Justin Bieber. They arrive on they usually lend their voice to it they usually assist embolden it,” Sharma mentioned.

“I am not saying that we want a non-South Asian artist to assist embolden South Asian music to make it go mainstream, however I feel we’re simply ready…. And I do know for a reality we will hit that time the place our music is performed in tandem with an Ed Sheeran report or a Drake report.”

Like Sharma, Gandhi thinks “ethnic Indian music” has mainstream music potential.

“There are such a lot of extra artists now who’re of Indian descent or who come from Indian musical backgrounds, who’re crossing over or collaborating with individuals from completely different genres…. And I feel that is at all times been a aim of mine, to erase these traces, as a result of it is all simply music.”

Gandhi sings in additional than 10 Indian languages. She does not converse all of the languages, however feels that together with them in her lyrics connects her to a variety of audiences. She goals of getting a music in Punjabi or Hindi acquire traction within the mainstream.

“The world is turning into so small, in a great way…. I am simply ready for it. I really feel like it’ll occur.”