Humble The Poet

It feels like one of those guaranteed party songs—the fat beat, the epic loop, the perfect wave-your-hands-in-the-air tempo. And it is a party song, no doubt. But pay attention to the lyrics and see the video, or better yet, watch the Humble the Poet perform it onstage, and you’ll know that “Baagi Music,” his 2010 anthem, is a lot more than that.

With its “Go Baagi Baagi! Go Baagi Baagi!” chants, it’s the Toronto MC’s biggest song, whether measured by YouTube clicks or the sheer energy rise in the club when he plays it. And it’s also a statement of defiance and regional pride, and a provocation—sharply crafted and aggressively delivered.

To wit: “Toronto’s my heart, Punjabi n my blood.” And: “I’m not Indian—four knuckles to your eyes, if you call me that again.” And: “F*@k Bollywood—we Punjabi!”

Around this core theme, some ornamentation: The flyness of Punjabi girls. The realness of Punjabi guys. How Punjabis the “home of bhangra and Jay Sean’s mom.” All spit by Humble, a tall, rangy Sikh brother with full beard and turban, hyped and accompanied onstage by his friend—and “Baagi Music” producer—Sikh Knowledge.

Humble at SOB's. Photo: MTV Iggy/ Nichole McCall

We get the message.

Or do we?

Because Humble the Poet, a.k.a. Kanwer Singh, isn’t just a single-issue voter or one-note MC. When he’s not big-upping Punjab, he’s addressing the frustration and melancholy of the immigrant condition; critiquing the schools and the prison system, and advocating resistance and solidarity. Elsewhere he’s speaking on Palestine, or on women’s rights.

And he’s aimed his most acerbic provocations at loftier targets than just Bollywood: In January 2009, only two days after Barack Obama’s inauguration, he uploaded a track called “Imagine 2009 (Obama Diss).”

It is just that, a harsh diss of the new president as just another agent of a flawed and unjust system. “F*@ Obama,” Humble raps. “Let me get the ball rolling, in a couple of years, that’ll be the new slogan.” You be the judge.

It’s a cross-border incursion, as Humble is, in fact, Canadian—a former Toronto elementary school teacher who now makes music full-time. His creative circle includes fellow Toronto new-school South Asian artists like the R&B singer Selena Dhillon; Sikh Knowledge, from Montreal (or “Realistan,” as he calls it), who supplies the bulk of the beats; and fellow brown leftist types from across North America, like the Bay Area’s Ras Ceylon and Mandeep Sethi. And in keeping with hip-hop tradition, as his own body of work and reputation progress, he is bringing along new artists under his wing.

A recent visit to New York finds Humble and Sikh Knowledge, whose given name is Kanwar Anit Singh Saini, relaxing backstage while waiting to perform at the downtown club S.O.B.’s. It’s the night of DJ Rekha’s monthly Basement Bhangra party, and they are the featured guests. Members of Desi punk band The Kominas were hanging out in the room as well. The next afternoon, the two Canadians will be spotted in the East Village, dropping in on an Internet radio broadcast by the hip (and two-thirds Desi) rap trio Das Racist.

All this adds up to a distinctly South Asian vibe, but Humble wants to set the record straight: He sees himself as part of the broad global family of hip-hop, not a niche artist making music for and about a specific ethnic constituency. “‘Desi hip-hop artist’ is the quickest way to put us in a box we don’t want to be in,” he says.

“I want to be an ethnic hip-hop artist in the same way B-Real is an ethnic hip-hop artist,” he goes on, referring to the leader of the classic L.A. group Cypress Hill. “He’s hip-hop, you know what his ethnicity is, he speaks Spanish in some of his rhymes—along the same lines. But I want to be in the pool of hip-hop. I want to be a small fish in the pool of hip-hop, because that’s the music that inspired me.”

“If I have to go as far as saying that I hope one day Jay-Z can be the Black Humble the Poet, I’ll say it. You need to compare me to these people. And I will destroy them, to show you I’m a more proficient hip-hop artist than them.”

He smiles: “Which I’m not at this point!”

It’s not exactly humble of Humble to rank himself ahead of the likes of Hova, even prospectively, but then it wouldn’t be hip-hop without a measure of healthy braggadocio. As it turns out, even his choice of stage name comes as much from wanting to draw attention to himself as from humility, even if the two seem contradictory.

“As I child I was heavily infused with Sikhism,” he says. “To its credit, it helped me realize that the ego is probably your greatest enemy. As philosophical as that was, ‘Humble’ became my screen name for chats and whatever I was doing to get girls.”

Posting as Humble on a hip-hop site during a battle-rap competition, he took on the well-worn debate between the concepts of rapper and MC—“because the rapper is just a dumb guy who rhymes, and the MC is a guy who communicates.” Humble went one better: “I had a line, ‘F*@ you MCs, I’m a poet. Edgar Allen Poe, Shakespeare, I’m trying to hit that level.’ And I actually won the tournament, so I kept the name Humble the Poet.”

It was only about four years ago that Humble began making full-fledged songs, starting with “Voice for the Voiceless,” a tribute to people in his community who died of gang violence, HIV and other scourges. He had come to hip-hop through the spoken-word scene, with at first no intention of rapping. “But then once the music was on, I kind of naturally fell into the beat as opposed to rhyming over it. It worked out pretty well.”

Well enough, in fact, that last year Humble gave up his day job of seven years, as an elementary school teacher, to focus completely on his music. The choice wasn’t just about time management, he says. It was also political.

Humble at SOB's. Photo: MTV Iggy/ Nichole McCall

“As a teacher I was part of the problem,” he says. “Every day I was getting these kids ready for a 9-to-5 life, making them think that whenever there was a problem there would be this authority I could run to and save the day. Hopefully I didn’t cause too much damage. If you love kids, teach them to be themselves and to take risks.”

It’s safe to say Humble has at least taken his own advice. In these few short years he has released a prodigious volume of work, including five albums’ worth of his own songs or collaborations and a plethora of original videos on his YouTube channel. He distributes all his work via free download, earning income instead from merchandise and gigs. It’s working out for now, he says: “I’m fortunate enough to be able to pay my mortgage.”

“I want to be the hardest worker in the room,” Humble says. And DJ Rekha, who has seen more than a few Desi artists come through and rock her party, says the Toronto MC’s commitment to his craft stands out.

“The great thing about Humble is his work ethic,” Rekha says. “I don’t want to cast him as this hard-working immigrant, but you get a vibe around him, that he’s ready to do this day and night.”

For Ali Sachedina, a manager, lawyer and consultant who works with a broad swathe of international artists, Humble’s music combines the energy of high-quality hip-hop with DIY values and an appealing set of cultural references.

“His message and his look are not alien to me,” Sachedina says. “Issues of race, immigration, religious persecution and love for the ladies are all ones that I understand. One thing is for certain—he is an incredibly skilled MC with some of the most intelligent lyrics and production I have heard from anyone.”

For that production and much more, Humble is quick to credit Sikh Knowledge as the key to his success. Vibing together backstage, the two men—who sport different takes on the Sikh turban and beard, Humble’s old-school and flowing, Sikh Knowledge’s fashion-forward and trimmed—show all the playfulness and ease of close creative partners.

The two live in separate cities and do much of their work together over the Internet, but their professional chemistry has proven highly potent.

“Sikh Knowledge, he’s taken so many pages of my excuse book and just ripped them up,” Humble says. “I still don’t even know how to add an echo to my voice! Let alone having someone I consider a better rapper than me to finish the verses. Let alone someone who can produce a beat out of spite and turn it over to me and have it be the biggest song of my career.”

Sikh Knowledge. Photo: MTV Iggy/ Nichole McCall

He’s referring to “Baagi Music,” which has a back story. Sikh Knowledge, who is openly gay, put the beat together at a time when he was coming under attack for his sexuality—all the way to death threats, he says. So he named the beat accordingly.

“The beat was called ‘F the Homophobes,’” Sikh Knowledge says, “because I was being attacked online by a bunch of losers, they just hate me because I’m gay.”

Humble interjects. “The idea of being homosexual was under attack, particularly a Punjabi Sikh being homosexual. And he took personal offense to it, rightly so. And what he said to me was, and you need to quote this: ‘F— that, I’m going to make the craziest club banger possible and shut everybody up.’”

Sikh Knowledge made the beat, but then decided to drop the hostilities with the Internet trolls. But not before posting the raw track online, where Humble discovered it the next morning. “I come out of the shower, I press play—and my towel fell off!”

Thus “Baagi Music” was born. Its title, says Sikh Knowledge, resurrects an old Punjabi word. “It’s basically a sovereign rebel, a rebel directed by his own internal compass. This is what we want kids to have, this sentiment of being their own internal rebel.”

“Baagi Music” is far from the only ultra-catchy song that Sikh Knowledge has put together for Humble. “Life of an Immigrant,” for example, rides a deft interpolation of GZA’s “Killah Hills10304” with “Ya Rayah,” the Algerian classic about emigration and exile. But “Baagi” is the undisputed anthem, the one that gets requested every time, the one Humble can play at a formal Punjabi event where no one knows hip-hop and still get everyone moving.

As such, Humble says, it’s also become a bit of an albatross.

“I’m loathing that song actually, it’s the bane of my existence. I can see why certain artists don’t want to get known for just one song. So I’m hoping to trump it or destroy it eventually, through new songs, in due course.”

One problem, he suggests, is that some in his audience take the song’s Punjabi nationalism, which is cultural more than political, to a place he did not intend.

Humble @SOBs. Photo: MTV Iggy/ Nichole McCall

“They think it’s the Khalistani national anthem,” he says. He’s referring to the name that Sikh separatists have given to their vision of an independent Punjab. It’s a cause that spiked in 1984 when the Indian Army occupied the sacred Golden Temple in Amritsar, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by a Sikh bodyguard, and reprisal attacks against Sikhs took place in Delhi and elsewhere. The Khalistan movement has since simmered down but still has its supporters in the diaspora, including in Toronto.

“I love the word Khalistan,” Humble says—but he doesn’t like all its uses. “I’m not a separatist; I’m an autonomist.” He has a political critique ofIndia’s treatment of Punjab, but he says it can be fixed without breaking India apart. “I don’t have a political ideology on it. Everybody has a different flavor of ice cream. I’m not down to take one idea and blanket everybody with it.”

You could argue Humble the Poet wants to have it both ways: The aggressive Punjabi pride, but also the broad-based, inclusive themes of social critique and class solidarity. But DJ Rekha, for one, sees no contradiction.

“It’s easy to be critical of any facet of South Asian nationalism,” Rekha says. “But if you look at artists who are proud of other places, like Jamaican artists for example, nobody thinks that’s parochial. It’s just that the baggage of South Asiais so heavy.”

Sachedina agrees. “Humble’s identity as a Punjabi is not one that defines his music, but it certainly powers his message. I can respect that.”

Humble @SOBs: Photo: MTV Iggy/ Nichole McCall

But there’s something else, too. When you’re a tall, bearded, turban-wearing man in the West these days, you get singled out and harassed to the point where some cultural defiance is understandable and probably necessary.

“I want to normalize the way I look,” Humble says. “I want to be as popular as possible so that this”—he points to his face—“is normal. If my competition now for beard and turban is Osama, and people always say his name when they see someone, then I will keep working until they say, wow, that guy over there looks just like Humble the Poet.”

And to get there, he’s committed himself to using hip-hop. Where the jaded see an art in decline or overrun with commercialism, Humble detects a renaissance—whether in the likes of J. Cole, Jay Electronica, Tyler, The Creator, or any number of new acts along with the music’s enduring grassroots vitality.

“People can’t complain anymore about the state of hip-hop,” Humble says. “Hip-hop is beautiful, it’s epic, it’s financially sound, it’s probably created so many jobs. It hasn’t been stolen by pop culture as much as people wanted it to be. I’m in it because I owe hip-hop. It’s going to be an extremely convenient time for the sound that we have and that we’re creating.” - MTV

Kaka Kanwar Singh is a Gursikh , who wears a black wrap-around turban, has a flowing, chest-level beard and a neat downward-facing moustache (“a symbol of humility”). Toronto-based Singh, who is in his mid-20s and alternates between crisp English and earthy Punjabi, says he meditates daily. In multi-cultural Canada, he would be another Canadian Punjabi – until you hear him sing about what it’s like to be one. Among British and Canadian desi hip-hop artists such as Jay Sean, Riz MC, Honey Singh and Imran Khan, Singh is the odd one out. Not just because Singh, who is still only an YouTube artist, has an independent label, albums, videos and tours to his credit, but also because he has been recreating a hybrid of immigrant hip-hop that is not just about hot chicks and gang wars.

The tall, skinny, fidgety Sikh, who speaks extremely fast and has a deep voice, is known as Humble the Poet on YouTube and has been, over the last two years, garnering millions of YouTube hits and scoring multiple album downloads as a wide-note MC, rapper and hip-hop artist. He has released five mixtapes so far, all of which he gives out free on his website thepoetproject.tumblr.com, besides posting regular slick, self-produced music videos online. Singh raps about a variety of topics, from the plight of immigrants in Canada (‘Life of an Immigrant’, ‘Singh With Me’) and the prison system, to Palestine (‘Fucks With Gaza’), and domestic violence (‘Voice for the Voiceless). He also sings in support of desi gay community in Canada (‘Baagi Music’).

Singh’s music is firmly rooted in his identity and grew out of his search for it as a youngster. “I would constantly discover who I am in my peer group of multi-ethnic friends. I held on to the fact that I am Punjabi tightly and chose my appearance to make a statement accordingly. And it really affects me, about what all happens in the world around me. I always have a comment to make whether it’s about the social crisis of modern-day Punjab, the honour killings, farmer’s debt, the 1984 riots…”

The third-grade history teacher grew up writing verse and ran a popular YouTube channel with friends called “Harman the Hater,” where he would occasionally get together with friends and rant about the inequities and hypocrisies around him. “I was always writing growing up, whether it were verses or short stories. And me and my friends would always hang out taking on everything we thought was wrong in our small community,” says Singh, who was born and brought up in a multi-ethnic neighbourhood in central Toronto.

Singh says that when one lives away from one’s people, the only way to hold on to one’s heritage is to keep using it. “Religion and curating our culture is more important to us living overseas. When I started rhyming in my early years, people would ask me why I am trying to be a black guy by rapping. My only answer is, ‘Did you know everything in the Guru Granth Sahib rhymes?’ Guru Nanak was the first real rapper,” says Singh, the youngest son of a cab driver.

“I started going for open mic nights and poetry slams around Toronto. That is where I nailed my unique sense of identity. I am a Canadian Punjabi. I am not Indian, make no mistake,” says Singh who transitioned into music after listening to artists like Lauryn Hill, Outkast, Goodie Mob and Ludacris. His first song, ‘Voice for the Voiceless’, dropped in 2008, when Indian immigrants in Canada were turning up dead in gang fights and pub brawls and were victims of STDs and dowry deaths. ‘Voice for the Voiceless’, a powerful song, had lyrics that went:

‘Sister sister, oh God I miss her, But now she in her own house, with her own life, her own mister, Servitude and solitude, lemme paint a picture, She never told me that when’s there’s liquor he used to hit her, Now she stuck, and he don’t give a fuck, Only peace for her when he out driving truck, Picked up a passenger from down south, 3 letters from a hooker now he brought it in his house, Infecting her while sexing her’

The song not only highlighted his lyrical toasting skills, but also his production abilities. “I knew it had to be slow tempo, so I put in haunting beats and a piano progression with rain and thunder samples. I knew I had nailed it,” says Singh. ‘Voice for the Voiceless’ generated fierce debates on the comment boards particularly among the Jat Sikh community, but it also helped solidify his fan base.

In India to collaborate on a track with Midival Punditz and Monica Dogra (Shaa’ir + Func), for the rockumentary jam travel-based show, The Dewarists, Singh spent nearly three days on the beaches of Goa co-composing a track on dance. “It’s a high energy, drum ‘n’ bass track. We are still unsure of the title. The Punditz sent me the song and I wrote the lyrics. The theme is on the eternal dance of the soul. I was inspired by a quote from the movie, V for Vendetta, which reads, ‘A revolution without dance is a revolution not worth happening.’”

This is also the first time Singh has worked with musicians from India. His core group of homies are usually Punjabi music producers in Canada with whom he has been creating mixtapes that are floating online under his record label Believe Me Music. Singh released his first mixtape titled 00.05 in 2009 and has been releasing similarly titled albums every year, the latest being 00.03.

Singh credits a large part of his popularity to Canadian Punjabi producer Kanwar Anit Singh Saini aka Sikh Knowledge. “I found him online because I was curiously searching for hits of my name. Turns out vanity actually pays,” Singh guffaws. Sikh Knowledge, says Singh, helped clean up and streamline his rhymes. “He’s helped me slow my rap down a lot and give me production knowledge. Together we are unbeatable.” Last year, the Kanwar & Kanwar alliance released ‘Baagi Music,’ Singh’s biggest hit yet. The track has scored over a million hits on YouTube and became his big ticket number. The under four-minute track is an up tempo club number that instantly gets you moving:

‘Toronto’s in my heart, Punjabi in my blood, I’m not Indian, four knuckles to your eyes, If you call me that again, Fuck Bollywood, we Punjabi, We the home of Bhangra and Jay Sean’s mom‘

‘Baagi Music’, says Singh, is essentially about who he is. “I am just a bushy, bearded individual. I’m a Punjabi and I love music and I have an opinion and I am not Osama’s brother. This is my answer to every Punjabi stereotype there is,” says Singh who describes how the song was originally intended as a coming-out track for Sikh Knowledge, who wrote it as a response to the ignorance and rabid homophobia he encountered around him.

“The idea of a Punjabi Sikh homosexual was unheard of and Sikh Knowledge took major offence to the statement. This was his way of dealing with it and I added the idea of identity to it.” Wasn’t ‘Baagi Music’ also misconstrued as a song that supported the Khalistan Movement? “Baagi means a sovereign rebel, someone who is self-motivated by his own conflicts. I have a tattoo of the word Khalsa on my back and one of the map of Punjab on my neck. I love the word Khalistan, but I am an autonomist, not a politician. I don’t endorse separatism, if autonomy can exist.”

Singh says his plan is to continue to work the way he has been for the last two years: to put up all his music for free and create music with his friends. “I make money via gigs and merchandising, that is more than enough for me.” But there is more to him, he says, than just this image of an intense hip hop preacher. He also wants to impress the ladies. “You know for a bearded sardar, I still get a lot of female attention. I love cars and fun-loving people. Social activism is a hobby for me and I will always have things to say and toast about.” - Rolling Stone Magainze