The Indian Mr Worldwide
We love crossover stars. We love seeing Priyanka Chopra Jonas on the cover of Vogue (and on this blog: https://medium.com/@jha.jayanti16/citadel-spies-in-style-4b4b34f92c9d). We love when Slumdog Millionaire is at the Oscars. And when Deepika Padukone is on Louis Vuitton billboards worldwide. Slowly but steadily, another Indian star is emerging on the global scene. He hasn’t yet signed with UTA, or made grand announcements before even landing in the West, but he has made his debut on late night US television.
Today Diljit Dosanjh is everywhere. He is on Jimmy Fallon’s show. He is on tour with his Dil-luminati tour (I mean, the name alone deserves global recognition). He is at the Ambani wedding (We agree, “Hogi Beyonce, Hogi Rihanna, saadi toh Kareena hi hai”). He is Amar Singh Chamkila (streaming on Netflix). Last year, Dosanjh became the first Punjabi singer at Coachella. Before him, only 2 Indian origin artists had performed at Coachella- Raveena Aurora, and Ritesh D’Souza. Jai Paul performed in the same year as Dosanjh, and Sid Sriram performed at Coachella this year.
But like every overnight success, Dosanjh didn’t just end up at The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon one day. It’s taken decades of consistent effort, of being a singer, an actor, and a fashion icon to get there.
He released his first album Ishq Da Uda Ada in 2003 with Finetone Cassettes, a division of T-Series. As his singing career developed, he debuted in his first Punjabi film, The Lion of Punjab in 2011, He was soon established as a credible actor and singer in the Punjabi film world. In 2016, he made his debut in Udta Punjab, where he may have been the quietest of the four leads, and yet magnetic (also gave us Ikk Kudi, which seems like the most unlike of Dosanjh’s songs, yet it just shows us that there is nothing that he can’t do).
As he cemented his position as an actor of repute across film industries, his singing career was becoming bigger by the day, with the release of the albums G.O.A.T (featuring Born to Shine, and G.O.A.T) and Moonchild Era (featuring Lover). In 2020, things started to shift globally for Dosanjh. It was in 2020, Dosanjh entered the Social 50 chart by Billboard, following the release of his 11th album G.O.A.T. The Billboard Social 50 is a popularity chart which ranks the most active musical artists on the world’s leading social networking services. The album later rose to the top of Billboard’s Top Triller Global chart. The album also entered top 20 in the Canadian Albums Chart.
In 2022, he signed with Warner Music. It is one of the “big three” recording companies, and the third-largest in the global music industry, after Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony Music Entertainment (SME). Recently he collaborated with pop sensation Sia for the banger that is Hass Hass, where he even got Sia to sing in Punjabi, and with Saweetie for the song Khutti. Dosanjh also performed with Ed Sheeran at a concert in Mumbai in March, 2024, where they performed a duet on the Punjabi singer’s song Lover. With his performance on The Tonight Show, he became the first Indian artist to perform on Jimmy Fallon.
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Globally and in India, we have seen people travel for concerts in recent times. Is it the post Covid effect? Travel, large crowds, experiencing something together with strangers, were all things that were taken from us in those years. Taylor Swift (would travel), Beyonce, and Coldplay have sold out venues across the globe. So has Dosanjh. Dosanjh made history by selling out the largest Punjabi show outside India, performing to over 50,000 attendees at the BC Place stadium in Vancouver, Canada.
Taylor Swift has been credited with reviving economies, and while Dosanjh is not there yet, his global appeal is making people travel to see him perform live. For his performance in July this year, Toronto experienced an unprecedented surge in travel demand. His concert has been credited for significantly boosting the city’s tourism and hospitality sectors. According to data provided by World on Holiday, a global travel insights center, the concert has sparked a remarkable increase in domestic travel to Toronto, with fans flocking from various parts of Canada.
As per World on Holiday, “Dosanjh’s concert in Toronto has driven a massive increase in hotel bookings from various cities. Vancouver leads with a 679% rise, followed by Kitchener at 686%, and Calgary at 603%. London, Mississauga, and Montreal also show significant increases at 509%, 263%, and 205%, respectively, highlighting the concert’s wide-reaching appeal across fans from Canada.”
Dosanjh’s concert in Toronto has sparked a significant rise in international hotel bookings as well. A report on the World on Holiday website stated, “Bermuda leads with a 1600% increase, followed by USA at 707% and France at 714%. Mexico and the Netherlands show substantial rises at 403% and 494%, respectively. Bookings from the UAE and Germany each increased by 300%, while the UK and India saw increases of 181% and 133%, respectively.”
On the rise in solo travelers in the city, the website mentioned that the share of solo travel bookings in Toronto spiked up for the concert dates, occupying 3/4th of all the bookings. Concerts are known to drive many solo travelers from neighboring cities to the event location.
Further it said that the heightened demand had a significant impact on hotel pricing in Toronto. The Average Daily Rate (ADR) for hotels has seen a substantial increase of 79%, rising from $126 to $225.
A friend of mine traveled from Delhi to Mumbai to celebrate her birthday at a Diljit Dosanjh concert (10/10 excellent birthday idea). Dosanjh is a performer, and his concerts seem like a party. Even I, a self proclaimed tone deaf person, watch snippets of his Coachella performance, as well as the Ambani pre wedding in Jamnagar every once in a while(His performance of Kinni Kinni is my favourite). Dosanjh is a massive success already, in the Punjabi music, and film industry where he started, in the Hindi film industry where this year alone he will be racking up nominations for his turn as controversial Punjabi singer Chamkila in Amar Singh Chamkila, and been a part of the blockbuster Crew (again featuring bangers from Dosanjh), the Indian music scene, and now at the world stage.
Dosanjh doesn’t alter his style, or that of his background dancers whether he is performing in India, or abroad. He always wears the turban, and his background dance crew is in the Punjabi Kurta and Tamba (men), and Punjabi suits (women). At no point does he try to change who he is to fit into what the West wants, and for an Indian artist that is rare. We have had our fair share of artists developing strange accents, and not wearing Indian designers outside, in the hope that they will fit in better. Maybe they blend in so well, that no one pays them any attention. Your culture is to be celebrated, and not hidden from others. A global stage brings both opportunity, and responsibility to showcase who you are, and Dosanjh has emerged as India’s unlikely ambassador on that stage.
