Like many kids born to migrant parents, Sukhdeep Singh — better known as rapper L-FRESH The LION — grew up oscillating between languages.
Punjabi at home; English in the playground.
"Growing up as a kid in south-west Sydney ... if you spoke another language, or had an accent, that wasn't cool," he told RN Soul Search's Meredith Lake.
"That was something that was made fun of, not celebrated."
The pressure to conform — to "be cool" — had an impact.
L-FRESH shied away from using his mother tongue, Punjabi, and gradually he lost fluency.
"To lose that connection to language was very painful for me," he says.
"As a Sikh, language is very important to us. It's how we connect to our music; it's how we connect to our faith."
But L-FRESH's loss of language affected tangible things, too, like his relationship with his grandma.
"She knew what I was trying to say but knew that I wasn't saying it correctly. And she'd correct me."
For L-FRESH, those moments were bittersweet. The lightness from making his grandmother laugh was marred by his sense of shame.
Colonialism, partition and the loss of language
But peer pressure wasn't the only factor that led to L-FRESH's disconnection with his ancestral vernacular.
He says the stripping away of language has been felt by generations of Sikhs before him.
"India was a region that was colonised by the British ... there was certainly a targeted strategy of trying to move people away from their language, culture and faith practices," he says.
After colonisation, the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 saw the Punjab region — from which Sikhism originates — split across national borders.
L-FRESH says this divide caused many Sikhs to lose touch with cultural practices, including the raag (or raga) music tradition, which is central to religious worship.
"There's a saying that within the music, that's where we find the Guru," he explains.
"And it's through this that we're able to achieve amrit ... [which] is how we achieve bliss or peace, the sweetest of all connections to a higher power."
Rap as a 'saviour'
Remarkably, it was a music tradition and culture from the other side of the world led L-FRESH back to his own Sikh, Punjabi roots.
"Hip hop music was the saviour for me," he says, referring back to his teenage years.
"I was listening to a lot of music, predominantly by young African American men from disenfranchised backgrounds [who were] living in poverty, or coming up out of poverty, and were still confident about themselves and what they stood for."
L-FRESH discovered an affinity with rapper Tupac Shakur and, upon delving into his music catalogue and personal history, came across the rapper's lineage.
"I learnt about his mum, Afeni Shakur, who was a Black Panther party member, and then about the Civil Rights movement and protests," L-FRESH says.
"All of that stuff made me realise, 'Well hang on, this battle against oppression is not too dissimilar from the stories my dad told me about our people.'"
'We must stand on the side of the oppressed'
Egalitarianism has been at the heart of Sikhism since it started in Punjab in the late 1400s.
The founder of the faith, Guru Nanak, denounced the region's caste system, and taught that all people, regardless of race or gender, were equal.
L-FRESH says from that point onward, Sikhs fought against human rights abuses.
"We, as a community, have embedded within us this purpose that we must not be silent and that we must use our lives for serving good in the world," he says.
"We must always stand on the side of those who are being oppressed and marginalised.
Now in his early 30s, L-FRESH hopes to inspire a new generation of Australians, particularly those from migrant and First Nations backgrounds, who may be grappling the same questions around identity that he did.
His forthcoming album South West, set for release this year, takes its name from where he grew up in Sydney. It's an area, L-FRESH says, where diversity isn't a buzzword, "it's just our everyday".
He describes the album as a conversation with his 15-year-old self — the teenager who "wanted to be the greatest rapper" — about embracing individuality and finding a purpose.
"I think it's such an Australian story," L-FRESH says.
"I want to create interesting stuff that kids ... can listen to and feel inspired by their own culture, and want to learn more about their heritage and where they're from."
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https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZ2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTA2LTA3L2hpcC1ob3Atc2F2aW91ci1hdXN0cmFsaWFuLXNpa2gtcmFwcGVyLWwtZnJlc2gtdGhlLWxpb24vMTIzMjIxNDLSASdodHRwczovL2FtcC5hYmMubmV0LmF1L2FydGljbGUvMTIzMjIxNDI?oc=5
2020-06-06 23:12:03Z
CAIiELf8GIUvIDbtfUl2rIhSS8IqFggEKg4IACoGCAow3vI9MPeaCDDc2g4
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