Gurshabad
Gurshabad Singh Kular is an Indian film actor and playback singer known for his work predominantly in Punjabi cinema and music industry. He is signed to Rhythm Boyz Entertainment as of 2019. 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 where he completed his Master of Arts program in Music.
Life and career
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.In September 2015, Gurshabad debuted as a singer with Vaar 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 , Geetkariyan , and Tarakiyaan , Gurshabad commenced his playback singing career with a track titled Rajya penned by Harman Jeet in the film Sarvann 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. Gurshabad's playback tracks in the Punjabi cinema such as Laari in Vekh Baraatan Challiyan, Tappay in Sat Sri Akaal England, and Selfie in a recently released Golak Bugni Bank te Batua has turned out to be commercially successful. Since its release in early April 2018, "Selfie" remained UK Asian Music Chart by Official Charts Company for eleven weeks with peak position of 23. 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.
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. 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," 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 any particular genre."
Discography
Singles
Year | Song | Record Label | Lyricist | Composer |
2016 | Milne Di Rutt | Rhythm Boyz Entertainment | Mukhtar | Desi Routz |
2016 | Jatta Jaag | Raavi Motion Pictures | Shiv Kumar Batalvi | Himself |
2017 | Tarakiyaan | Rhythm Boyz Entertainment | Sidhu Sarabjit | Tigerstyle |
2017 | Chann Ve | Rhythm Boyz Entertainment | Harman Jeet | Manpreet Singh, Gurmoh |
2018 | Taareyaan De Utte | DD Punjabi | Harman Jeet | Gurmoh |
Duo collaborations
Film soundtracks
Filmography
Year | Film | Genre | Role | Writer | Director |
2015 | Angrej | Historical Romance | Akram | Amberdeep Singh | Simerjit Singh |
2018 | Golak Bugni Bank Te Batua | Comedy-drama | Dodhi | Dheeraj Rattan | Ksshitij Chaudhary |
2018 | Ashke | Drama | Gogga | Dheeraj Rattan | Amberdeep Singh |
2019 | Chal Mera Putt | Comedy-drama | Billa | Rakesh Dhawan | Janjot Singh |
2020 | Chal Mera Putt 2 | Comedy-drama | Billa | Rakesh Dhawan | Janjot Singh |