COVER STORY: Inside Rashmeet Kaur’s Boundary-Breaking Debut Album ‘KAURA’

She doesn’t say it directly, but Rashmeet Kaur wants to be seen as a singing superstar. The New Delhi-raised, Mumbai-based Punjabi singer-songwriter is speaking from somewhere in Thailand after a private gig where she belted out some of her numerous Bollywood songs (“Nadiyon Paar”) as well as modern renditions of Punjabi folk songs like “Bajre Da Sitta.”

“I want to entertain all kinds of people. Jo legendary log hote hai na, [you know the legendary people], I want to be in that league. I don’t want to be like, ‘Chalo aaye, gaye.’ [they came, they went]”

Kaur is releasing her debut album, KAURA, on January 11th. The name is a play on the “aura of Kaur” and is indicative of how she thinks. It features over 30 artists across 12 tracks, with three singles that have been drawing huge numbers on streaming platforms, not just for the music but also for their sleek visual aesthetics (the videos are all directed by Kaur). “Haye Ri Duniya” brings together Ikka and producer duo Rusha & Blizza to talk about the world in all its chaos, while “Pyar Ki Bahaar” has Munawar Faruqui rapping with Kaur on a folksy love song, and “Udd Jana” features fellow Punjabi star Wazir Patar.

The album, Kaur says, is the culmination of three years of hard work. “I wake up with this album. I have been sleeping with this album, and obviously, because there’s so much going on and five mix engineers are involved, I got it mastered in the U.K.” Some of the songs have much longer roots. She recalls how, when she was part of Amazon Prime’s reality show The Remix in 2018—which she won alongside producer Su Real—she pitched a song to Nucleya, who was a judge. “It’s one of the songs now on the album. It is incredible how things just take shape and eventually reach somewhere,” Kaur says. 

True to her ballsy, experiment-oriented style, Kaur confidently says that an album like KAURA has never been done before in terms of an Indian female artist creating an album that has collaborators on every track.

The list includes everyone, from New Delhi rap duo Seedhe Maut, rapper Muhfaad (on the mystic “Bhole”), and Punjabi powerhouse Simran Kaur Dhadli (on “Sherni”) to France-based Indian-origin rapper Tracy De Sa (who has brought Hindi bars for the first time) and Shillong rapper Reble, among others yet to be announced.

As someone who’s often been featured on albums by the likes of Nucleya, Raftaar, KR$NA, and many more in independent and mainstream Indian music, KAURA is Rashmeet Kaur’s effort at showing how good she is at bringing everyone together for a genre-hopping album that keeps Punjabi folk at the center. “It’s my responsibility to bring more people together and show their talent. Jodna humara kaam hai, todna humara kaam nahi hai. (Our job is to bring people together, not tear them apart.)”

Community is something she’s often spoken about in all her interviews. Not just in the context of her debut album. “As an artist, it’s a responsibility that you build your community; you bring everybody together and try to deliver something together, rather than just doing your own thing… Everybody is pretty much doing their own thing,” she says.

The 29-year-old Kaur is a classically trained vocalist who first learned and performed Gurmat Sangeet (Sikh devotional music) from her mother at the age of six. Raised in New Delhi, the singer was a regular competitor on music shows such as Sa Re Ga Ma Pa and Asia’s Singing Superstar. Her talent ensured that she was among the finalists several times. This stint on reality TV led to several commercial and film music projects. “I won’t deny that I used to be competitive, but now I feel I’ve come to a point where I’m just competing with myself,” Kaur says.

2023 saw her jump into reality T.V. once again, being part of the action show Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi, which was filmed in Cape Town. While she was there, Kaur brought together Nigerian singer-songwriter C-Mart, Congo producer Gaz Mawete, and Germany-based Konstantin Reinfeld to work on her non-album single “Cherie Coco.”

While KAURA could be considered a hip-hop album, it also incorporates elements of R&B, Afrobeats, lo-fi, drill, trap, pop, and folk-fusion across the 12 tracks. Kaur says that when she started, it wasn’t intended to be an album but more of a series of collaborative singles. “From three songs, it became four, five, and six and went on to become a full-fledged album featuring 35 artists,” she says. The collaborations were a mix of remote and in-person studio sessions. Kaur worked with artists like Dhrruv Yogi and IP Singh (from pop-rock band Faridkot) on the lyrics and producer Saurabh Lokhande. Every artist, she says, has “delivered something very different and something very unusual and new from their kitty.”

She points to how Faruqui, despite himself, appears on the love song “Pyar Ki Bahaar,” while Seedhe Maut notches up the “slang” quotient in their song. “Once they saw that the idea was unusual, they also felt they should also try something different,” Kaur says.

Kaur has been hailed since her The Remix days for bringing her classical vocal style to the forefront, even with Bollywood remixes. Indian traditional and folk music riffs are another favorite of hers, which are liberally sprinkled all over KAURA. “I think folk is forever new. Everybody likes a folk tune. I don’t even have to try; it just comes from within,” she says.

Kaur talks about the global appeal of folk. She refers to Beyoncé, specifically pointing to her track “Mood 4 Eva” with Jay-Z, Childish Gambino, and Oumou Sangaré. “In that song, she’s just trying to show the richness of a culture. It’s a seven-and-a-half-minute video,” she says. “The bigger you become, the bigger the responsibility is on an artist to push your culture more in the open.” It’s no surprise to hear this from Kaur, who manages her solo material alongside Bollywood projects and has previously released a Sikh devotional album in 2020.

“I’m very passionate. I mean, you can tell. Anybody can tell.” Kaur is talking about how she’s taken on not just making the music for her album KAURA but also the intriguing music videos for songs like “Haye Ri Duniya.” A nod towards shock-rock aesthetics, there’s also gravity-defying hairdos and Kaur’s makeup that stuns with every look, from turquoise-colored eye lenses to a streak of blood running from her eye. Ikka’s verse takes no prisoners, and Kaur takes subversive bass production from Rusha & Blizza to lament the ways of the world. “I would say it’s about the world, but I’m being too honest; I’m being too Desi, but in a very urban way, but also very folk in the way that I’m just spitting facts,” she adds.  Turning “kya kya” into “ka ka” in the track is a nod to Rusha & Blizza’s song “Kaka.”

Kaur is big on looks and style. Singers like Beyoncé, Doja Cat, and FKA Twigs have inspired her both sonically and aesthetically.  “I want it to be very bold, and very abstract,” she says. There’s undoubtedly an Indianness to it all. “Inspirations can be countless, but at the end of the day, you have to express it in your own way.” 

It helps that all her inspirations are among the most hard-working artists in music. “So I can’t be lazy and lethargic when it comes to putting efforts into my visuals, editing, mastering, mixing, or anything for that matter,” Kaur says.

She gives the example of Punjabi star Diljit Dosanjh, whose performances at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California understandably set a new benchmark for Indian artists. “Agar mereko kal Coachella karna hai, Red Rocks [amphitheater in Colarado] karna hai, toh meri team ko samajhna chahiye ki mujhe karna hai woh. (If tomorrow I want to play Coachella or Red Rocks, my team should understand that it’s my goal.) Diljit ne bhi kar liya na? Punjabi pohonch gaye Coachella. (Diljit did it too, right? Punjabis have reached Coachella). If he can do it, why can’t I?” she says. She’s not worried about how long it will take. “Obviously, making art takes time.”

While the first three songs are already making waves, the rest of the tracks from KAURA will drop next month. She originally toyed with the idea of releasing the album track by track over a few months but then changed her mind. “There is no end to marketing. If it’s art, if it’s created with love, if it’s created with a lot of effort and all the amazing and positive intentions, then it’s gonna reach somewhere someday” she says. In Kaur’s world, it’s all about intent and drive. “I want to give my 100 percent and I want to give my all so that I don’t have regrets later.”

And she’s got ten more songs in the pipeline after KAURA. “I’m never stopping, because I have bigger reasons to be here,” she says. She feels she’s born to do something to make this world a little better. “Starting with my art and then social work. Pehle art karte hai, paisa kamate hai and phir karenge social work.” (First, let’s make art, make money, and then do social work.)