Five years ago, Sidhu Moose Wala announced his arrival with So High. Using flutes and a faint tumble, producer Byg Byrd rooted the song in hip-hop but made it reminiscent of the Punjabi bhangra; on the hook, Sidhu’s voice rises. With nearly 500 million views since 2017, the viral track allies itself with the audience as co-conspirators: Sidhu is our boisterous friend, whose bravado is a line through his most popular songs. On So High, the Punjabi rapper, one of the most successful to emerge from the region, prophesies “imitative lyricists”, gangsters, a prolific premiere program and living on the precipice of danger. All the issues materialized throughout his career, which has ended in a deadly shooting at the age of 28.
Sidhu Moose Wala, originally Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, was born on June 11, 1993 and began singing in the fifth grade with popular songs by Baba Banda Singh Bahadur, a legendary early 18th century Sikh commander. In 2015, Sidhu began writing songs for other people in the Punjabi music industry in Chandigarh while a college student, finding his first success as the author of the song Ninja License, but soon committed to writing only for to him. She moved to Brampton, Ontario in December 2016 after completing her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and moonlight as a music artist.
His stage name, meaning “Sidhu of Moosa”, his birthplace, is a fundamental article of devotion to his people, which he tried to elevate on purpose: wherever he went, he once said, his “village also aniria “. Sidhu is the name of the clan of the people, and therefore, in essence, Sidhu Moose Wala allowed Shubhdeep to embody the aspirations of any of Moosa.
Following the unprecedented success of So High, Sidhu released his debut album PBX 1 in October 2018. The lead single Jaat Da Muqabala opens with metal and glossy synthesizers, straddling pop and trap while Sidhu waves his voice, like great Punjabi like Gurdas Maan but also contemporary Americans like Polo G, with lyrics that value his high caste status. Meanwhile, songs like Selfmade and Death Route show a fascination with the dualities of ascent and fall: Sidhu explores his middle-class origins and his family’s support for Selfmade, but passes the Death Route ruminating on dark nights. and the threats that threaten: ominous clouds that will in fact follow their success.
Prior to the release of PBX 1, Sidhu gained notoriety by exchanging barbs with other Punjabi hip-hop artists Deep Jandu and Karan Aujla. His song Up and Down reads like a direct retort to So High, talking about how those who rise can fall; Sidhu responded in the same way with Warning Shots. There were other fights, with collaborators Byg Byrd and Sunny Malton, over leaked tracks and unpaid bills, but some went off, with Sidhu since he released songs with Malton.
Fans pay tribute to Sidhu Moose Wala at a vigil in Amritsar the day after his death. Photo: Narinder Nanu / AFP / Getty Images
Beyond the reference letters of arms and masculinity, Sidhu used his microphone to talk about the socio-political problems of the Punjab and challenge the status quo. In Punjab (My Homeland), Sidhu personifies a Punjab who will not “accept the pushes” of the Delhi government. It was launched as a hymn to the farmers ’protests: Sidhu supported them in the mass movement of agricultural subsidies from August 2020 to December 2021 and campaigned unsuccessfully in 2022 for the district headquarters of Mansa in the legislature of the Punjab.
At the end of his masterpiece Moosetape, a 32-song tour de force that pays homage to ancestors such as Bohemia as he summons international contemporaries such as British MCs Stefflon Don and Tion Wayne, Sidhu interrogates the Indian penal code. With a piano melody and trumpet sounds, 295 takes the point of view of a loving father who advises Sidhu that regardless of his path, he will be trapped. His choices are either to “tell the truth” and suffer violations of Section 295 (penalize actions “intended to outrage religious sentiments”) or to advance his career and generate hatred. Sidhu consoles himself, consigned to a controversial destination anyway.
Sidhu recently released The Last Ride on May 15th. In what now seems prodigious, Sidhu used photos of 2Pac’s murder site as a cover. Sidhu venerated the California rapper, and the song delves into the G-funk sounds of the west coast, mimicking a low-rider anthem through the production of Wazir Patar. It opens with a sample of a news story about 2Pac’s death, and Sidhu sings how “his coffin will be lifted in his youth.”
Martyrdom is ubiquitous in Punjabi Sikh culture, from the sacrifices of gurus to the hanging of the revolutionary Bhagat Singh of the 1920s to the deaths in farmers’ protests, and Sidhu ruminated on the subject in The Last Ride. His art is an awkward contradiction: to speak positively of caste and violence, even though it is rooted in a Sikh faith that is anti-caste, peace-loving and egalitarian.
This contradiction, however, was what made him a fascinating artist. Sidhu’s humility and the other side of his bravado is most evident in another 2Pac tribute: his 2020 song Dear Mama. Instead of rap, a whistle flute and a guitar give way to Sidhu’s sonic voice expressing his love for his mother, almost like a classic Moosa folk song: “Mom, I always feel like I’m just like you. . I want to write your name, Charan Kaur, on my chest. Aside from the violent nature of his death, this is how he could be remembered: an artist who tried to lift everything that raised him.