Speech pathologist by day and DJ by night, Kanwar Anit Singh Saini also known as Sikh Knowledge is providing a safe space for Toronto’s Panjabi queer community through music.
While Sikh was working in Ontario’s healthcare system, he noticed the lack of diversity and how it has dimmed his mental health.
“You try to do the right thing by disenfranchising people through every legal avenue, well written emails, maximum participation and clinical skills, and you’re met with apprehension, senior leadership that has white supremacy baked-into it,” Sikh told Now Toronto.
“I have focused my work on BIPOC and queer families and now use music as a form of healing for myself. I’m a firm believer that culture is the antidote to capitalism’s detrimental impact on us, therefore I try to stay close to Panjabi language, music, poetry, and heritage,” he continued.
As a DJ, MC, and producer, Sikh has also had to push past queer taboos in the South Asian community.
“I have done my work as an out and proud artist for like two decades. Doesn’t matter what good I’ve done, the barrier is look, image, and the whispers,” he said.
As an artist, Sikh differentiates himself through combining Hip Hop and Panjabi folk melodies, the production team he works with, and curated events with guests who debunk colonial narratives of what it means to be Panjabi while celebrating historical similarities of various generations of South Asian immigrants.
“Each guest I interview gives me their Panjabi diasporic journey which comes with its own style of Panjabi musical access and influence… For example, my guest this month Ravjot Mehek comes from a family of Marasi’s (deep deep musical Panjabi roots, on Pakistan side that transcended Sikhism and Islam),” he said.
“Upon interviewing her, she shared her family’s connection to the most epic gharanas (musical houses) in Panjab. Being from the US, they had a completely different access to Panjabi music from me who grew up in the commonwealth and was deeply influenced by British Panjabi music, and the West Indies,” he continued.
The team Sikh works with is known as Pineapple Express Media (PEMedia), a Panjabi and Scotian-Jamaican owned music publishing company based in Toronto and Halifax.
“PEMedia highlights the interconnectedness of Indian, Jamaica and Caribbean cultures and the influence of that connection on music genres gaining commercial viability. Through colonization our cultures met and created electrifying music,” co-founder Nivie Singh told Now Toronto.
PEMedia was founded in 2020 by Singh and Kayla Borden to provide spaces for the South Asian and Caribbean diaspora in Canadian and European contexts through events and to help multicultural artists connect with music buyers, sellers, and executives.
Sikh Knowledge will be performing on May 25 from 10:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. at Mama’s Liquor and Lounge with queer Sikh activist Ravjot Mahek Singh in attendance. Tickets are $30.
