Gurshabad

Gurshabad ਗੁਰਸ਼ਬਦ
Gurshabad during an interview for his upcoming film
Born	Gurshabad Singh Kular (1989-08-24) 24 August 1989 Amritsar, Punjab, India
Residence	Chandigarh, India
Other names	Gurshabad Singh
Education	Master of Arts in Music
Alma mater	Khalsa College, Amritsar, Guru Nanak Dev University, Panjab University
Occupation	Singer Actor Live performer
Years active	2015-present
Musical career
Genres	Playback singing Folk Punjabi Bhangra Romantic Pop Sikh
Labels	Rhythm Boyz Entertainment PTC Motion Pictures
Website	gurshabadofficial.com

Gurshabad Singh Kular (Gurmukhi: ਗੁਰਸ਼ਬਦ ਸਿੰਘ ਕੁਲਾਰ; born 24 August, 1989)^[1], credited as Gurshabad Singh or simply Gurshabad, is an Indian film actor and playback singer known for his work predominantly in Punjabi cinema and music industry. Born in Rampur Bhootwind village in Amritsar district of Punjab, Gurshabad always aspired to become a playback singer, and started learning and performing music at an early age of ten years^[2]. He began his musical journey with Sikh religious music, and along the way, he met with his love for folk music. After completing his junior high school from a local school, he attended Khalsa College, Amritsar for his undergraduate and went on to study at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar ^[3] where he completed his Master of Arts program in Music.

Career

In September 2015, Gurshabad debuted as a singer with Vaar Bhagat Singh (dedicated to Shaheed Bhagat Singh), a duo collaboration along with Ammy Virk. In the same year, Gurshabad gave his first film appearance in a box-office success Angrej, in which Amrinder Gill played the lead role. After singing singles including Milne Di Rutt (ਮਿਲਣੇ ਦੀ ਰੁੱਤ) (2016), Geetkariyan (ਗੀਤਕਾਰੀਆਂ) (2016), and Tarakiyaan (ਤਰੱਕੀਆਂ) (2017), Gurshabad commenced his playback singing career with a track titled Rajya (ਰਾਜਿਆ) penned by Harman Jeet^[4] in the film Sarvann (2017) produced by Priyanka Chopra, Madhu Chopra & Deepshikha Deshmukh.

Always conscious of how fragile the psychology of a human is and what vulnerabilities a song might expose one to, Gurshabad has been walking on a socially aware and culturally sensitive path in his music and film career^[2]. Gurshabad's playback tracks in the Punjabi cinema such as Laari (ਲਾਰੀ) in Vekh Baraatan Challiyan (2017), Tappay (ਟੱਪੇ) in Sat Sri Akaal England (2017), and Selfie in a recently released Golak Bugni Bank te Batua (2018)^{[5] [6]} has turned out to be commercially successful. Since its release in early April 2018, Selfie has been continuously listed up in The Official Asian Music Chart by BBC Asian Network ^[7]. Gurshabad is also widely appreciated as the Geetkariyan fame singer. For the same, he has also been awarded with PTC Punjabi Music Award for best song with a message^[8].

Psychopolitics of music

Since his beginning in the music industry, Gurshabad has been quite vocal about the depth of his interest in exploring the culture of Punjab through its textual and oral histories. Understanding the power of language, it is no coincidence that one of the written pieces that left a rich mark on his mind is "My Dagestan" by Rasul Gamzatov talks about how our identity is embedded within our mother language^[9]. Always keen to stretch the dimensions of his brain, Gurshabad firmly believes that music carries both a power of documenting as well as perpetuating the contemporary culture and realities of societal structure. As music and social psychology carry a reciprocal relationship, he has been visibly unsettled by the fact that for more than a decade, contemporary Punjabi music has been openly encouraging and glamorizing some inherently toxic ideas including the consumption of drugs, and rape culture in the name of commercialization. However, Gurshabad approaches this disturbance with a subtle perspective that "rather than dividing the Punjabi music along binaries of good and bad, we should take music as a documentation of what is happening around us,"^[10] and critically observe the forms of interaction between human psychology and politics that our music creates a space for.

Without denying his preference for singing folk literature, in the recent interviews for Golak Bugni Bank Te Batua, Gurshabad has made it clear that "I am all exploratory when it comes to performing art, and would try to avoid limiting myself to a particular genre." ^[11]

Discography

Filmography

Key

Denotes films that have not yet been released

Live performances

References

External links

• Official website
• Gurshabad on IMDb