In the video of his latest single, Courtside, Karan Aujla cruised around Miami’s South Beach in Maybach Shades and Richard Mille watches. Aujla flows to his relaxed, bass-heavy beats with light, bass beats, pulling it to the Cartier and Louis Vuitton stores in the design area, and then rolls to Hard Rock Stadium, where he sneaks into the celebrities, who is the Formula One Miami Grand Prix.
“I saw DJ Khale being there by DJ Khale being there.” The sensation of rap, singing and songwriting in Punjabi tells me when I caught up with his track in early May. Aujla just filmed some video scenes with the Stake F1 team, who cut the artist’s seven-figure sponsorship deal in 2023 after he reached out through IG.
The Florida Sun was playing hide-and-seek with storm clouds before the start gun, but at the moment when the weather was clear he whipped the iPhone and showed me some DMS back and forth with Timbaland. “I really want to work with him,” Oira said of the legendary producer. “He uses a lot of Indian instruments in his songs, but his own style is not even like Indian instruments.”
From day one, Aujla's musical pursuit has been creating a unique style. Before moving to Vancouver as a teenager, Aujla was “everywhere” in Northwest India, with a sound that blended his home’s rich musical traditions with the latest pop, hip-hop and R&B. Today, he is at the forefront of the music wave in Punjab, Canada, with billions of streams between Spotify and YouTube, and has started tours in the United States and Europe this summer, and has sold arena tours throughout Canada and India. Along the way, he experienced extreme lifestyle upgrades.
“I like to dress up,” he said without any concealment. "I love to buy beautiful clothes, cars, nice clocks. I always want it, but when we want it we really don't have money. Now we're going to make it, so we might as well spend it somewhere, you know?"
Born in a rural village in 1997, Jaskaran Singh Aujla lost his parents by the age of nine and said he took care of him for several years before moving to Canada to live with his sisters. He kicked out of school because he was more interested in music than in class, and he claimed to be a long-time portraitist when writing songs for other artists - until his 2018 breakout release of the hit song "Lot Crave", a duo with Punjabi star Gurlez Akhtar. After paying all these dues, Aujla won the right to taste it successfully. "I love life, just enjoy it," he said. "Yes, I'm very good at doing it."
He is also good at writing hit songs. Last year, Aujla became the first South Asian artist to win a Fan Choice Award in Junos, an honor he shared with Canadian superstars Avril Lavigne and Justin Bieber. "If you're dreaming, make sure you dream for it." He said as he accepted the trophy. His upcoming show in North America and Europe, known as "It's All Dream Journey", will begin in July shortly after his third solo album is released. Aujla’s biggest dream is to shoot modern Punjabi music globally and make it the next Afrobeats or K-pop, a sound that can attract people outside of culture to attract real things.
Of course, India is not a single place, but a huge subcontinent with 22 official languages, over 1,000 dialects and 28 different states. “Punjab is a state on the north side and we speak different languages than the rest of India,” Oira explains, relaxing in a luxury hotel suite overlooking Miami Beach. "The Punjabi culture has a huge culture. Punjabi food is different. Punjabi songs are different. We have a drum sound called A go. We have our own keyboard tool called harmony. But we no longer use them in every song. We are trying to flip the sound and create a fusion. ”In India, Punjab is often called hardworking, passionate people who know how to meet.
In the early 2000s, traditional Punjabi dance music was blown up in the UK, with a population of nearly five million. Jay-Z mastered the movement when he jumped on Panjabi MC Remix in 2003, and a few years later, British Asian artist Jay Sean Blew Blew was big enough to work with Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj, but most of his best songs were recorded in English.
This time, the wave comes from Canada, with Punjabi people twice as many as the UK, “It’s basically another Punjabi,” said Oira, who was surprised to find that Canadian Punjabi don’t speak their native language. “We’re just trying to improve culture and educate more people,” he said. “It’s like people know about Latin traps or African groups.”
There are more than 1.4 billion people in India and 2 billion South Asians around the world, with a number of major campaigns to build. "It won't happen overnight, but the more we talk about it, the more songs we release, and the great music we do will help it become a thing. I really hope Punjabi music hears more sounds on the streets," Oira said. "Play in hotel lobbies and in cafes. Like, it must be normal things - and it's cool."
Signatures with Indian-Canadian producers like Ikky, SB, Aujla and a handful of like-minded artists, have created new sounds and built followers. He also works with US behavior from Onerepublic to YG. When he sprinkled English in the lyrics, he was determined to stay true to his roots and push Thetha Punjabi is the pure, authentic form of the language – a traditional rural language, Hindi and other dialects have little influence.
“I don’t want my music to sound like something I’ve done before,” said Oira, who left a man named Milan on his team to help him bridge the gap. "He doesn't know Punjabi, but he knows the culture. Being with us, it just helped me create some different sounds. How do we flip those sounds? How do we combine them into something that makes it cooler? Like, if someone doesn't know Punjabi, they can only get along with music or melody."
After leaving Miami, Oira will return to the luxury villa in Dubai, where he now calls home and spends a week in the small village where he was born. "My parents didn't even take me to the hospital," he said. "My mom delivered goods in a house. It was crazy to think I came from a village with only 200, 250 houses." He said his parents passed by, lifted the orphans, pressed their school uniforms every day, and he learned all the morals of life.
Although Aujla should have rested in Miami, the work never really stopped. After the interview, a photographer was waiting to shoot promotional images for Canadian Warner Music. Of course, he had to finish the music video before leaving town. "Even if I have time to rest, I'm still working, but at least I'm not writing all the time. The writing process has become a little heavy because it's a lot of thinking." Still, he loves to write new songs. He compared it to the opening of the portal - the melody comes from elsewhere and flows through him. His songs tell stories about his life and his people, and these are full of inspiring stories that are enough to connect everyone with.
Aujla's success allowed him to live a noble life, and his fans loved seeing him wearing ice and designer outfits. However, success also has its drawbacks. Gang culture in the Punjabi community has been well documented, including the alleged blackmail of successful artists. “In Canada, yes, in India – it’s been there all the time,” Oira said. "Even old Punjabi singers are going through it. They've experienced blackmail or gang violence, which makes it really hard for you as an artist. But I think it's getting better now."
On his debut album in 2021 BaptizedAujla's music reflects the harder side of life, but in recent work – including 2023 Make memories - He struggles to deal with the responsibility of having such a large audience. "Artists in culture are trying to stand and unite to get violence out of the lyrics," he said.
He also noted that any competition with the artist is put aside in the booming Canadian Punjabi dance scene. Aujla wrote for 41-year-old OG Diljit Dosanjh, reportedly the title track for his 2020 album goat Just 10 minutes. Aujla joined AP Dhillon on stage during a show in Mumbai last December, his 2024 album Brown prints Consolidating his dominance as another top Punjabi artist – dispelling social media about any tensions between artists. “Music is not a fucking sport,” Darron declared. “There is no winner or loser in this game.”
"If we don't do this now, when will we do it?" Oira told me. "I also felt resentful to some artists during those days - do I not know anything?" he smiled. “I’m all from the same place and I feel like now we all realize that if we want to make it big, it’s time to support each other.’ Because unity is everything.”
Aujla sampled Hollywood fame speech on his earlier solo track, Let Em Play, and Snoop Dogg famously declared: "I want to thank me." Ojla said he was related to work ethics, confidence, courage. "When I got home, I had heard a lot of Snoop Dogg and 50 cents," he recalled. Recently, he worked with Mumbai rapper Divine and shared the stage with Hanumankind. "I would definitely say J. Cole is one of the people who taught me how to write correctly," Oira added. "How to flow English words well into Punjabi rather than compulsiveness. It's the main thing. It has to sound natural."
Of course, he named his tour after the eternal Biggie series "All Dreams", a voice of a young man who has changed his life as he found a way to take advantage of his God-given lyrical gift. aujla is definitely related to this feeling.
“From where I come from, I never thought that this is what we live today,” he said. “I’m grateful for all this, especially through music, all the love and support.
That's what he's trying to convey on his next album. One thing he hasn't yet is the name of the voice. "It's a hard question because I don't even have a name for this type," he said. "Of course it's Punjabi music, but is it pop? Is it? Is it rap? We're inspired by different cultures, 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."