On February 11, a shabad (devotional song in the Sikh faith) from Guru Granth Sahib, Darshan Maango De Pyaare resounded in the Staples Center auditorium in Los Angeles. Snatam Kaur, a US-based yoga instructor and musician who earned a Grammy nomination in the ‘New Age’ category, enthralled audiences not only present in the auditorium but also via livestreaming online.
From her latest album, Beloved, Ms Kaur chose this shabad written by the fifth Sikh guru Arjan Dev to make her debut at the 61st Grammy Awards, the biggest music award ceremony in the world. She tours the world to promote yoga as well as music in the Sikh tradition. Also an environmentalist and peace activist, she is a resident of Wilton, New Hampshire in the US.
In 2017, an American musical band named White Sun had won the Grammy award in the same category as Ms Kaur.
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Speaking with New Hampshire Public Radio, Ms Kaur said that she has been preparing for the Grammy Awards since she began touring in 2004. A baptised Sikh, Ms Kaur promotes gurbani (Sikh hymns set to music) set to contemporary music.
With 22 music albums under her belt, Mr Kaur has carved a niche for herself in Sikh devotional music that attracts people from cultures that may not otherwise lean towards the conventional soft and slow style of traditional Indian music.
Ms Kaur’s albums have become the standard background music setting for many yoga studios, especially in the US. It is said that many yoga enthusiasts discovered her music from their yoga classes.
Ms Kaur is a prodigy of the Amritsar-based Miri Piri Academy, a boarding school popular amongst Sikhism and yoga enthusiasts the world over. Her parents introduced her to Sikhism when she was only six years of age, she says in an interview to stillharbor.org.
As a six-year old, she accompanied her parents to Amritsar who went to learn kirtan (tradition of Indian devotional music). They lived there for a few months, which perhaps sowed the seed of appreciation towards kirtan and yoga in her mind.
Referring to her mother’s kirtan teacher, Ms Kaur says in the interview: “They kind of adopted me into the family. I remember flying kites with one of the boys on the roof and sitting on the lap of my mother’s teacher—a very blessed experience. He was a musician at the Golden Temple, which was the main Sikh temple.”
When she turned 18, she followed up on her India experience by living in an Indian boarding school for six months. Thereafter she formally started learning and practising kirtan.
Globally known for her music and yoga, Ms Kaur was invited by none other than Oprah Winfrey on her show, Super Soul Sunday. A self-confessed fan of Ms Kaur, Ms Winfrey writes on Oprah.com that her friends arranged a surprise performance by Ms Kaur on her 58th birthday.
Ms Kaur lives in the US with her husband, Sopurkh Singh Khalsa and daughter Jap Preet Kaur. Her mother, Prabhu Nam Kaur is also a well-known kirtan performer and yoga teacher.
