Who is Raveena Aurora?

By Relocated Asian Staff

March 2024

Raveena Aurora is an American singer-songwriter with Indian-Punjabi-Sikh roots that smoothly blends elements of pop, R&B and jazz with a dash of South Asian flavor. She is a highly creative and dynamic artist who creates beautiful conceptual experimentations in sound that are threaded together by stories of healing and self-realization. The 30-year-old artist born and raised in Massachusetts and Queens NY was inspired by artists like Indian singer Asha Puthli, Sade, Corinne Bailey Rae, D'Angelo, Minnie Riperton, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. When she started listening to Holiday and Fitzgerald, they inspired her to sing. The artist is quoted in NME magazine as saying “Once, I heard their voices, I was hooked, there is no turning back. I really fell in love with the voice and how to use it and study it and be as expressive with it as possible.” She began recording music while attending NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and released her debut EP Shanti after graduating in 2017. She released her first studio album Lucid in 2019 and her second EP Moonstone in 2020. In 2022 she signed to Warner Records and released her sophomore album, Asha’s Awakening that features a single with Vince Staples and a song with Asha Puthli. The record was created as a concept album from the perspective of a Punjabi space princess and even ends with a guided meditation led by Raveena herself. This theme is reiterated on her well thought out website RaveenaAurora.com, that makes you feel like you are floating through the cosmos and features a cool comic book entitled Asha’s Awakening. In 2022 she was the first woman of Indian descent to headline the Coachella Music Festival as a solo artist and in 2023 performed at Lollapalooza India. With over One Million monthly listeners on Raveena Aurora's Spotify and over 500k followers on Raveena Aurora's YouTube, we encourage you to give her a listen and support her journey.

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Who is Dhruv?

By Relocated Asian Staff

March 2024

Dhruv is a British-born, Singaporean-American singer-songwriter. Raised in Singapore with parents from India, Dhruv grew up on an eclectic mix of songs from Bollywood, 2000s pop radio and music from Singapore. He attended United World College in Singapore and at 18 moved to the US to attend Yale University in Connecticut where he began to become interested in making his own music. He plays several instruments such as the acoustic guitar, accordion, and keyboard. His sound draws comparison to Frank Ocean as his music is the epitome of love, hardship, breakup, and all the raw emotion revolving around the themes of his experiences as a young, queer Indian man. Dhruv was signed to RCA Music after releasing independent mixtapes between 2017 and 2018. In August 2019 he released Double Take, his debut single. The R&B song about falling in love with a best friend hit number one in the Philippines and Thailand and was in the top five on streaming charts in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore that year. In 2020, he released his first studio album, Rapunzel becoming his first number one album in several Southeast Asian countries. In 2021 he became famous when Double Take became extremely popular though TikTok and was placed on Spotify's Today's Top Hits playlist in 2021. TikTok videos featuring the song have recorded over 250 million views and more than 700 million streams on Spotify. In 2021 Double Take debuted on the Billboard Global Chart. He followed this success with the singles Moonlight and Vulnerable in 2020. Dhruv performed his latest 2024 single Tragedy on the Jimmy Kimmel Show in February 2024 and according to his website DHRVIE.com, he will be performing in NYC on May 11th, in London May 23rd and Los Angeles, CA on May 30th, 2024.

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Artist Spotlight

Glass Beams

By Relocated Asian Staff

March 2024

Glass Beams is an instrumental band based in Melbourne Australia. The masked band is formed around founding member Rajan Silva whose father emigrated to Melbourne in the 1970’s. Rajan’s musical influence start with his memories of watching a DVD with his father entitled “Concert for George” a star-studded tribute to the late Beatle George Harrison. The concert performed at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2002 featured legendary Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar and his daughter Anoushka alongside western icons like Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney. His fathers record collection mixed with Indian and western artists also drew Silva to the fusion of western musical styles with classic Indian music. Glass Beams music reflects this with its international sound melding different cultures and paying homage to those who came before them. A quote from their website, GlassBeams.com, “Glass Beams acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land on which we live, work and perform and pay our respects to our elders past, present and emerging.” The band who always perform masked, has not definitively given a reason why they perform masked, but one theory is that they unselfishly want their listeners to focus on the music and not on themselves. Their June 2021 album Mirage was well received and led to an abundance of grassroots support, festival invitations and touring. After touring and getting back to their home studio Glass Beams released their much anticipated second album Mahal in March 2024. The 20-minute project available on YouTube is a must listen to get their vibe.

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Artist Spotlight

Priya Ragu

Singer-Songwriter Priya Ragupathylingam, better known by the stage name Priya Ragu was born in Switzerland in 1985 to Sri Lankan Tamil parents. Her parents left Sri Lanka during the civil war in the 1980’s and emigrated to the Bazen Heid, Canton of St. Gallen region of Switzerland. To help Priya and her brother (Producer Japhna Gold) be more aware of their Tamil Heritage, her father decided to create a small band performing songs from Kollywood (Tamil Cinema) movies. Priya sang while her father played the Tabla and her brother played keyboard. Her father also encouraged her and her brother to perform at cultural events and weddings to raise money for the people in Tamil Nadu. After completing her secondary education Priya moved to Zurich Switzerland and became an accountant for Swiss International Airlines. She continued to do music in her spare time but like most South Asian parents, they did not encourage Priya to quit her job and to pursue music full time due to their conservative views about Pop and western music. Thankfully, Priya followed her heart and continued to make music secretly against her parents' wishes. In 2017 she moved to New York for six months to pursue her musical dream but unfortunately did not meet anybody to help move her career forward. Instead, she continued to collaborate over Skype with her brother, Producer Japhna Gold who was still back in Switzerland. Priya's brother encouraged her to record songs in Tamil and the duo titled their album Ragu Wayy. In 2020 she released her song Good Love 2.0 which was played on the popular BBC radio show Future Sounds, and she consequently signed a record deal with Warner Music in October 2020. Her debut mixtape titled damnshestamil consists of 10 tracks include the singles "Good Love 2.0", "Chicken Lemon Rice", "Kamali", "Forgot About" and "Lockdown". damnshestamil was produced in collaboration with her brother, Japhna Gold, included backing vocals from her father, and its closing track, "Santhosam" (which translates to Happiness), was written by her mother. She has received multiple award nominations from MTV UK, MTV Europe, BBC and the Swiss Music Awards. She has also appeared in British Vogue, on BBC Radio 1 and on the FIFA 21 soundtrack. Vogue India named her as one of 6 musicians who are about to blow up. Please support Priya’s music.

By Relocated Asian Staff

March 2024

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Anik Khan

Anik Khan is a Bangladeshi American rapper/singer/songwriter who at four years old, with his parents moved to the United States. Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh he was raised in Astoria, Queens New York and Leesburg, Virginia. In high school he began making beats with the music production software FL Studio and later attended Full Sail University in Florida to study recording arts engineering. While at school Khan would travel back to New York to record music in his spare time. In 2015 Khan began to release music and was managed by Fadia Kader, Def Jam’s director of brand partnerships and strategic marketing. After the release of his singles “Too Late Now” and “Renegade” in 2016, his career started to take off with his music being played by Ebro Darden on Beats 1 Radio and he began doing college tours around the country. In April 2017 Khan released his album “Kites” which he described as story about himself, “a young guy who’s chasing his dreams in his late 20’s”. In 2018 Khan released “Oh My” that featured producer Sango and popular Nigerian Artist Burna Boy. With new success Khan began to receive opportunities to tour in Europe but was unable to due to his immigration status and lack of American citizenship. Upon finally receiving his citizenship Khan was to release a two-part project in 2020, however due to the Covid-19 Pandemic and resulting lockdown, the projects were delayed until 2021. In a business of many ups and downs Anik continues to strive and traverse setbacks and is due to release new music soon. Check out his Instagram where he continuously updates his journey.

By Relocated Asian Staff

March 2024