South Asian music gets its due at Junos this weekend, reflecting rising popularity in Canada
'It feels like a dream come true,' says artist nominated for inaugural award
Yanchan Rajmohan, known professionally as Yanchan Produced, is on cloud nine.
"It feels like a dream come true," he said in an interview with CBC News about his recent Juno nomination.
While an awards nod is a big deal to most artists, to Yanchan, this recognition has an added aspect. He is nominated for South Asian music recording of the year, a new category for the 2025 Juno Awards, which take place on Sunday.
"I've watched the Junos every year, and to finally have a category that represents South Asian artists and to be a part of this for the first time ... it just feels like hope to me," he said.
That recognition comes amid the music's growing popularity — especially in Canada. SiriusXM recently announced a new South Asian music channel, citing the "massive growth of South Asian music in Canada."
In 2023, Warner Music's Canadian and Indian divisions jointly founded 91 North Records, a label meant to support and capitalize on the rise of South Asian artists.
It's since gone on to sign South Asian powerhouses like Jonita Gandhi and Chani Nattan — both of whom are nominated for Junos this year.
And just last year, Indian musician Diljit Dosanjh took to the stage in front of 54,000 people at Vancouver's BC Place — the largest-ever Punjabi concert outside of India, according to Billboard Canada.
It was a followup to a 2022 sold-out show at the city's Rogers Arena that some B.C. industry members pointed to as a seminal moment for South Asian music in the country.
That influence appears often on the Junos shortlist. There, artists Karan Aujla, Sukha, AP Dhillon and AR Paisley show up everywhere from fan choice and single, to album and breakthrough artist of the year.
But it is in the new category — created, the Junos explained in an announcement, for a country that's become the "epicentre of South Asian music globally" — that the collection of talent is impossible to miss.
Yanchan said their success can continue to create more change.
"I'm hoping that I can open the doors," he said. "Then behind me is a whole army of other talented musicians, who can follow their own path and, you know, add their own impact to the industry."
Music journalist Jeevan Sangha said this change has been a long time coming. That's especially true in her province of British Columbia, where the awards are set to take place and where AP Dhillon, Karan Aujla and fellow South Asian nominee Jazzy B call home.
"I'm from Surrey, so if you walk the streets of Surrey, you're going to hear Punjabi music in the streets. It's very normal," she said. "I just think that now, more and more people are getting exposed to it through programming like the Junos, where they get to see it at an award show in a different light."
There are a number of possible reasons for its growth. According to Statistics Canada, the South Asian population in Canada nearly quadrupled between 1996 and 2021. In the 2021 census, more than 2.3 million Canadians reported South Asian ethnicity, with large numbers in Alberta, B.C. and Ontario, where they represent 7.1, 9.6 and 10.8 per cent of the population, respectively.
'Language isn't necessarily a barrier,' says journalist
Sangha doesn't attribute the rise in the music's popularity just to people of South Asian background. She said the music has gained a foothold throughout the country, possibly bolstered by the advent of streaming.
It's an effect observed elsewhere: According to a 2023 year-end report by American music analyst company Luminate Data, nearly 40 per cent of American music listeners reported listening to songs in a non-English language.
It was part of a larger trend: Between 2021 and 2022, Luminate reported, there was an 85 per cent increase of songs in the top streaming tracks that originated outside of the United States. That far-reaching sensibility, Sangha said, could be bolstering interest in South Asian music.
"I would totally say language isn't necessarily a barrier," she said of American and Canadian listeners considering Punjabi music. "It might even be a hook."
Still, while the new category at the Junos is a good first step, Sangha said, she has reservations.
"My concern ... is this kind of turning into a bucket where we can put South Asian artists and not have them recognized in mainstream categories," she said.
"I'm hoping that this is one step towards not needing a South Asian category at all and just seeing, you know, South Asian artists and artists from all across the world being recognized alongside artists that maybe are more familiar to Canadians on the radio."
Given the fact that South Asian artists are spread throughout the nominations list, Sangha said, that's at least not the case this year.
For Toronto's Jonita Gandhi, who is also nominated in the new category and is slated to perform at the awards, the inclusion is nothing but good news. Growing up in Mississauga, Ont., she said, she was often bullied for her appearance.
After getting into music, for which she credits streaming for creating a broad audience, it led to a self-acceptance and self-confidence that she said felt impossible as a child.
But having a category like this would have helped her get there much faster, Gandhi said.
"I definitely would have loved to see more people like me when I was younger to kind of look up to and be like, 'Hey, it's all right — it's OK to be brown," she said. "It's OK to be Punjabi and be different basically in a lot of different ways.'"
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With files from Eli Glasner and Griffin Jaeger