It’s morning in Toronto when I speak to Svetha Rao, also known by her alter-ego Raja Kumari. Though the Indian-American artist has moved to India, she’s in Canada for the Signed to God world tour – a hologram tour of Sidhu Moosewala organised by his family. (After two sold-out shows in Toronto and Vancouver, the rest of the tour in the USA and Canada was postponed indefinitely at the time of publishing.)
She’s just released her single “GYAARA”, the first song she’s singing in Punjabi, which also features the last voice note she received from Sidhu Moosewala before he died. It’s also her first single from her upcoming (and sixth) album ZINDABAD: The DEKADE of Kumari, marking a decade of her in music.
In an emotional conversation, Raja Kumari speaks to Billboard India about her experience at the opening night, her foray into singing in Punjabi, and the special relationship between her and Sidhu Moosewala.
Let’s start with the Signed to God tour. How did your presence at the tour happen?
That’s beautiful. I got a message from Jase Singh, who is Sidhu’s manager. He told me about this tour almost over a year-and-a-half ago. He told me what they had planned.
I have a really special song with Sidhu because he doesn’t have a lot of love songs. So it’s like a really special part of his artistry that gets to be shown through “Us”. As soon as I got that call and I knew that it would be happening and that the family was involved, it just felt like it was important that I’m there.
The things I experienced through working with Sidhu, whether him announcing our song and the way that my page went viral and got 50,000 followers in one day… my phone exploded. Or just reaching my first hundred million streams on a song, on an independent song with Sidhu.
Even after death, even after not being on Earth, he’s still helping me in so many ways. It still feels like if Sidhu’s with me, then who can be against me, which is how I felt when he was here. Somehow he’s still giving me that same protection and love.
Take us through the day for those of us who were not there.
I’ve been making a lot of jokes to the other artists on stage that were with us because I was like, that was the craziest show. Bohemia, AP Dhillon, Raja Kumari, Sikander Kahlon – it was just back to back, crazy cycling of superstars onto the stage. The energy was so different.
It’s been such a trip because I would say we could feel Sidhu’s presence so much. I got picked up from the airport in a car wrapped with his face. I’m trying to look out the window and it’s his face right here. I flew over with his parents and his little brother, baby Sidhu.
We lost him in such a hard way… he didn’t go quietly. He was taken from us. You have to keep reminding yourself that justice has not been served to this point.
And we could say rest in peace or we could say thank you to him. But this is how important an artist is. Just having this connection with him that now makes me part of this whole community where I’m accepted. And you can see how much he meant and his music means to people even today, because the sound of that stadium just with the memory of him, it was crazy.
I went to Coachella the year that Tupac had his hologram. I felt it was very new. There was something that wasn’t very human about it. It looked like a drawing… they couldn’t get the face right. But this one was different. The technology has obviously improved.
You kept that last voice note from Sidhu. What made you believe that it deserves a place in your song “GYAARA”?
I had a lot of cute voice notes from Sidhu at some point. He would be speaking in Punjabi and mine would be in Hindi which wasn’t as good. And now I’m immersed in Punjabi. People are just speaking Punjabi around me 24/7. But something special about that voice note was that it was the last one that he had sent because it was just 10-12 days before he passed away.
We were just discussing the timelines of our next song. When he said, ‘don’t worry about it’. There was something so soft in his tone. A lot of people maybe didn’t get to experience that side of Sidhu. They just see him as a gangster.
He had so much value for my art and he really was like, ‘you’re so great at this and you need to be doing this and you should be singing in Punjabi and you shouldn’t care what anybody thinks. If I write it for you, it’ll be amazing.’ So what do you say when you have the greatest Punjabi writer saying that he’ll write your lyrics? Of course you want to do it.
When I was working on my album, we left this musical interlude in there naturally because we were like, ‘oh, the song needs to breathe. It’s so heavy in different ways.’ And then I just knew exactly what it needed. I pulled it up. We [producer Nacho Larraza] just queued it up and it fit perfectly.
I got permission from his parents to put it on there, obviously. I was just hoping that they approved it because it’s a lot of things. One, it’s even if I’m scared or people have things to say about my Punjabi or my Hindi, I’m sure I’ve made mistakes. Sidhu wasn’t here to help me with the pronunciation and Gagan [Kooner, co-writer on “GYAARA”] did the best he could.
And I hope to become better and better. That’s something as a Telugu girl making a Punjabi song for the first time, I’m sure there are mistakes. And I’m going to work on them.
But just him saying, ‘don’t worry about it’. It’s just like those words are really important. And yeah, it just helps me.
[Raja Kumari cries]
Why did you release “GYAARA” now?
Watching him release Moosetape, back to back, like single, single, he had a schedule. We were all watching. It was the pandemic. I was reviewing every song just as a fan, and it taught me a lot about engaging with your audience. He taught me to make your own community and not rely on anything else.
His passing was around the time I went independent. So he’s been a big lesson. And I always call him a guardian angel. My gentle giant, because he’s so tall, but so sweet. I’m sure he’s a super thug, but I didn’t get that side. I got a really sweet, warm side and I did feel really protected. I did feel kind of invincible when he’s on my corner.
But, even after passing he’s still in my corner somehow and I’m still being taken around the world. And, before we took this tour, I was saying somehow he’s keeping all his promises to me, things that were even unspoken, just like him putting his arm around me and making me part of the crew and telling me to sing in Punjabi. He gave me so much encouragement at a time when I didn’t know which direction to go. And, maybe even now, I’m about to release my sixth studio album, ZINDABAD: The DEKADE of Kumari. I’m reflecting on 10 years as an artist. The album has my first Punjabi song, which is “GYAARA”, our first single. And there’s Telugu on this album, there’s Spanish, there’s Hindi, English, Punjabi, Tamil, it has so many languages.
And I was wondering, how will I release “GYAARA”? And then when this tour came, it just made sense to put it on tour with him and do it together because there was a story. It’s been a beautiful experience to be able to meet so many more Punjabi artists, hip-hop artists, because that’s my playlist. There’s PropheC. And then when AP was there, we were on the back. But when he did “Brown Munde”, I was like, goodbye. I went to the front and I’m like [sings “Brown Munde”]. I learned those lyrics so I could be in the front row as a Telugu girl and sing it. So he brought us all together in different ways.
Are there things that you’ve learnt from Sidhu that you continue to do today?
I only got one song with him. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with him. You could count how many conversations we’ve had. But what I learned from him and what I learned from even Shah Rukh Khan is that the impact you have on people. You have to be present and you have to give your energy and be a real person because you don’t know the impact that you have on them.
And I feel with Sidhu, he just came at the right time, when I was doubting myself, when I was being blacklisted or I was being targeted in the industry with me being in a male-dominated space… Sidhu put me on Moosetape and made a music video with me and gave me so much encouragement.
When people want to celebrate him, they want to hear “Us”, the song that he gave me. And at that time, everyone was giving me songs about guns and gangsters because I know I have that tone. And I remember he said, ‘I have a song for us’. I was like, I wonder what he’s going to send me. And then this beautiful love song was sent to me.
I learned a lot from him in his passing. You have to keep your energy, you have to stay present and you can’t really use it and leak it in places where people don’t appreciate you. I tell people that I realised that even in such small interactions, Sidhu gave me so much respect and he encouraged me in a lot of ways without realising it. After he was taken from us, I just felt like if you can’t give me that baseline respect, then you don’t really deserve to be in my circle because it’s pulling my energy.
What has changed that you were willing to sing in a new language?
It’s always been there since I met Sidhu. I was complaining that every time I sing in Hindi, I keep messing it up. He’s like, come to Punjabi. It matches your tone because Sanskrit. Classical dance. There’s a lot of bass in the tone. Even though it is difficult to sing, there are definitely so many nuances I’m going to learn. When I hear my first Hindi songs and I hear the songs now, I’m like, wow, I really couldn’t say those sounds.
But, that’s growth. So, I wonder what my future is in Punjabi, how much more Punjabi I’ll do. I think when I work with incredible artists… I’m sitting with Bohemia and I’m sitting with Sikander Kahlon and they’re all saying, ‘we’ll write your Punjabi lyrics’. Who am I to say no? I will take the Punjabi lyrics because it’s so much fun, because I’m a listener also. If you actually look at my playlist, it’s just like Navaan Sandhu, it’s just like back to back Punjabi after Punjabi.
I’m Telugu. I don’t even know what’s going on. That’s how I was about Sidhu too. In the beginning, I didn’t know what he was saying. I just knew it was gangster and I just knew that I loved it.
