Newbie Sukhu Hopes To Become A One-Man Army
The Punjabi-American artist, Sukhu discovered his love of music from using a T-Pain app as a kid. A young Sukhu never thought he’d be able to live out his dream of being a singer, but today he’s working on launching his music career. The talented singer garnered some viral buzz with his mashups and “Starboy remix” and most recently, he released an original track titled “Unthinkable.” The ballad shows true potential for him to take over the urban desi scene so we had to catch up with this rising star to get his story.
Check out what Sukhu had to tell us about his music, his journey, and his goals.
DissDash: Tell us a little about your journey, how did your love of music begin?
Sukhu: My music journey began in grade 10 with the I Am T-Pain app. The app basically made you sound like T-Pain with the autotune and I had lots of fun with it. I first started rapping for the first year or so but one day in my cousins’ room, he was playing ‘Apologize’ by One Republic on the piano and I was just singing in the corner of the room and he stopped playing and turned around and said, “Yo. You should sing. You sing way better than you rap.” So basically that’s how I went from rapping to singing. I slowly started building my little home studio with a mic, then preamp, then converters, monitors, etc. over the years and in that process I was loving music more and more because it was something that allowed me to escape from the real world and dive into a whole new world of creativity.
DissDash: Were you ever trained as a singer?
Sukhu: No, I’ve never been trained. I just watched a bunch of YouTube videos of some of my idols, like Chris Brown, Zayn, James Arthur, etc. and just tried to mimic them. I will start training soon so I can take my singing to another level.
DissDash: Was there ever a defining moment in your life where you decided music was definitely what you wanted to build a career in?
Sukhu: I’ve always wanted to have a career in music, but I never thought it would be an actual thing. It was more dreams and lots of singing in the shower but a defining moment where I thought to myself, “wow I can actually see a promising future” was after I dropped “Starboy” – my first official remix original that I had done in 2016. I got a lot buzz from that track in the following months, and then I dropped another remix but this time it was a mashup of Drake and Bollywood songs which again kept me
Sukhu: I’d love to make and shoot short films. I just love to create things. So if it isn’t music, then I would love to tell a story behind a camera lens and maybe also be in front of the lens to act in.
DissDash: What was your first original track? How did it feel writing and singing it?
Sukhu: The first original track that I had released was “Starboy remix.” I literally woke up one morning out of bed, walked over to my little studio setup and wrote and recorded that whole song in 3 hours. At that time, I was working with a producer from Sweden, we just went back and forth a few times to get the final touches and mixes complete and bam! The “Starboy remix” that started my career was made. It was an amazing feeling. I had people I had no idea who they were sharing my stuff all over Twitter and Facebook, etc. To finally have created something, and it getting such positive feedback was a dream come true. I waited since I was that little kid in 10th grade, perfecting my talent and never settled for something I wasn’t happy with. Patience really paid off.
DissDash: Your latest track, “Unthinkable” is amazing! Can you tell us more about the process? How did you find the inspiration for it?
Sukhu: My thing is melancholy tracks. Something about making those moody tracks is something I excel in. But everyone insisted that I need to make upbeat fun songs as well, so “Unthinkable” was my first upbeat/tropical vibe song. The track is about something I feel like our generation is afraid of and it is falling in love. We are so quick to leaving our partners and finding new ones, so commitment is hard to come by. So, it’s about finding the perfect someone and doing something you’d never thought you would do, and that is falling in love.
DissDash: Who would be your dream collab?
Sukhu: Oh man, my dream collab would have to be Zayn. That guy has the most skillful and versatile voice out there. I would love to learn his vocal training exercises and just make a dope track together.
DissDash: How do you plan on improving your skills as an artist?
Sukhu: I want to improve my skills in two aspects, the first and most important one is improving my vocals. I want to increase my range and be more confident with my voice, I also want to get more classical training like learning classical Indian music. The second is producing, I want to be able to be my own producer and make something all on my own. The end goal is to
Sukhu: I love movies and always intrigued by actors on how they portray such emotions that impact the audience so greatly. I want to be able to do that so I’ve been studying acting. I
Sukhu: I think the whole process is my favorite! But if I had to choose one part I think it would be when I work on a song for hours and I think its trash, but after coming back to it from a break and sitting there like damn, this is actually super dope. Can’t tell you how many times that happens!
Sukhu: In 5 years, I’d hope to have won some sort of award for my music. I just want to grow my audience and engage with them on the highest level. I want to accomplish many things with my music, have some albums out, win awards, been on a tour. I also want to make a big difference in the world, I want to provide children with education who don’t have anyone, help kids in poverty in areas like India. I just want to make a difference in the world whether or not my music takes off or not, but music will help me with my goals such as these.
Sukhu: Expect me to start directing and shooting my own videos, adding elements in my songs that I haven’t yet and more music this year than I’ve ever released! And possibly some surprise collabs! I’m excited for 2019!
