01x01 - Episode 1

[bunniefuu]

[crowd cheering]

[AP] In the beginning...
nobody wanted to work with me.

All the labels told me
"This ain't gonna work."

[chanting] AP! AP! AP!

[AP] So I had two options.

Check, check.

[crowd cheering]

One is give up,
and listen to their advice.

[all] Three... two... one...
Brown Munde!

[AP] The second is just do
what my heart tells me to do.

[crowd cheering]

[sings "Spaceship" in Punjabi]

[Bobby] AP Dhillon.
Definitely first of a kind.

[Nirmika] AP Dhillon is one of

India's biggest artists of the times.

[Bobby] They've already taken
South Asian music by storm.

[newscaster] Over five billion streams.

[Bobby] They keep breaking records.

[Nirmika] They're just so phenomenal,

but there is the cloak of mystery
that he wears.

[Bobby] As a fan of AP Dhillon,

it's infuriating
that he's not doing any interviews.

There is a certain mystery about him.

I wanna know you!

[all] Brown Munde!

[in Punjabi] My name is Amrit.

[in English] I'm a singer, songwriter,
and producer.

[upbeat music playing]

He's spawning a revolution.

AP Dhillon...

-AP Dhillon...
-AP Dhillon...

I don't think any artist out there

has done what we have done
as an independent.

[Kevin] We started in a f*cking basement.

Look at where we are,
look where we're going.

Let's do this.

[Bobby] It's only taken
three years to selling out arenas.

And we didn't expect it was gonna
blow up this crazy.

But if they continue as independents...

[AP] Ay, yo, what the f*ck?

...it might knock them
just when they're about to take over.

This is not the day to f*ck sh*t up.

[Kevin] The show cost
is probably 1.5 to 2 mil.

I don't wanna go in debt.

Can we punch some
production guys right now?

[Kevin] People in the industry
that will see what we're doing

and be like, "These guys
have no f*cking idea."

I need this ASAP!

[Kevin] And maybe they're right.

Your fans own you.

We bet on ourselves, so we just have to
give our fans what they want.

[upbeat music playing]

[AP] We all are brown
and if we can't bring each other up,

who else's gonna do it?

Let's f*cking go!

[cheering]

What's left is to take over
the world. [laughs]

[bird cawing]

[slow music playing]

[AP] It's been four years I think.

There's a lot of emotions inside.

Just seeing the places where I used to go

and the places where I grew up.

And...

I think nothing has been changed,
to be honest.

[in Punjabi] My district is Gurdaspur.

I spent my childhood in the village.

At school,

I wasn't able to concentrate.

I used to fail my classes.

But sometimes...

these types of things inspire you.

I had a motto that

I want to do something big in life.

-[car whirring]
-[cycle bell rings]

[director, in English]
Sir, do you want to say something?

[in Hindi] How do you
feel now he's come home?

[Mr. Dhillon, in Hindi]
"Read the language of my tears.

Read the language of my tears.

My mouth is shut but my eyes are saying.

You have come making

the world beautiful.

Ask my heart what you mean to me.

[in English] Welcome to...
Welcome to home.

AP, welcome to home.

[AP] Honestly, I just want to go

spend some time with my family.

[crowd clamoring]

[overlapping chatter]

[AP] Moving to Canada
has changed me a lot.

[in Punjabi] But I am
the same person inside.

Wait a second.

-[in Punjabi] Get her in.
-Let's take her in.

[AP] But sometimes I feel in the struggles
of life that I miss my family.

[in English] I didn't want
to leave this country.

I wanted to stay in Punjab.

[in Punjabi] I used to say
I don't want to go.

[in English] My dad
made that decision for me,

and honestly, they sent me
to a place I don't know.

[slow guitar music]

[in Punjabi] And I came
to this country, Canada, as an immigrant.

I remember I moved here
with two suitcases.

I did not know what a credit card was.

All hotels required a credit card
wherever I went.

[in English] When I first landed
on Vancouver Island,

it was hard for me because there wasn't
many brown people here.

[in Punjabi] Nobody knew me here.

The language barrier was also difficult.

I started school.

[in English] It was all new to me.

I called my dad and I was like,
"Yo, I want to get the f*ck out of here."

But I kind of forced myself to stay there.

Until I make sense of it.

[ambient music playing]

You're trying to figure out a job.

You're going to work at a gas store
or a convenience store.

I worked in Best Buy as a sales associate.

But that doesn't really get you any far.

I was working hard,

and putting that money
and extra on a credit card, to my music.

For two-and-a-half years,
pretty much that's all I did.

[ambient music fades out]

It's been seven years since I came.

Vancouver island's home now.

-[slow music playing]
-[birds chirping]

[Herman] Nah, it's gonna get used, bro.

-It's gonna get used so much.
-Yeah, a 100 percent.

[Herman] Like, fast, without...

[AP] All these guys
gonna be hungry tonight.

There's nothing to eat. [chuckles]

[Gminxr, in English] Yo, I'm gonna...
I'm gonna setup the speakers here.

[AP] I met Gurinder, Gminxr,

Shinda in Canada.

Not having any family here,
that's the family I have.

That's how you roll.
You roll with your g*ng.

No, I feel like you kind of want
one element to keep going, no?

[upbeat music playing]

Yeah. And like one of these
instruments at the end

-can also cut one bar ahead.
-[Gminxr] Yeah.

Right? Not here, but, like,
here, here, here.

[Gminxr] Oh, yeah.

[upbeat music continues]

No wait, take it. I feel like
it would be more saucy

if the drop comes here actually, yeah.

[upbeat music playing]

Fire, fire.

[Herman] Yo, breakfast, guys!

[AP, in Punjabi] Because
we are products of Punjab...

[Herman, in English]
GG, there's a chair here.

[AP, in Punjabi] ...it's
in our blood, right?

We cannot remove that thing.

[in English] I was always into music,
to be honest.

Like, my dad, he, uh,
listened to a lot of Sufi music.

And I think a lot of my taste
is influenced by him.

But I did listen to, like,

a lot of, like, the music
from this side of the world.

[upbeat music playing over speakers]

[Gminxr] Growing up in Victoria,

you don't see a lot of Indians.

So any time I seen another Indian,
I'm like, "Yo..."

I'll be the first guy to go greet
the guy, you know?

[in Punjabi] I found AP in
a communications class.

And we started speaking with each other.

He is from the same village as my mother.

Our first questions to each other were,
"Where are you from?"

[singing in Punjabi]

I heard his voice

and it struck a chord
with me, you know.

[sings in Punjabi]

[Gminxr, in Punjabi]
I said to him on the spot

that I have a studio,
and he should visit.

But he was stubborn. He did not come.

He did not come for a whole year.

[in English] But he's always
drawing people in, you know?

He always had that energy to him.

[sings in Punjabi]

[AP, in Punjabi]
There was a small space in the garage.

I saved money and over time,
I bought the basic equipment,

built my studio.

I spent one year learning
everything on YouTube.

We knew how to sing
and we knew the beats were correct,

but we didn't know how to
put them together and create music.

[sings in Punjabi]

[Gurinder, in English] The very first time
I met AP was in school,

when I recently got to Canada in 2015.

I got to know he has, like,
interest in music

and I was singing, like,
a little bit here and there.

And then we used to get, like, drunk,

like, do parties and get drunk
and started singing and stuff.

[sings in Punjabi]

[in English] And everybody was saying,
"You guys sing actually good.

You should try to work on
a track or do something."

[Shinda] Me and Gurinder
used to work at the same place.

AP, Gurinder
and a bunch of their other friends

already had a circle
who loved music.

[sings in Punjabi]

[Shinda, in English]
I met AP through Gurinder.

While we were sitting at
and chilling at their place.

And I was... I was really impressed
by how passionate

he was about music.

[sings in Punjabi]

[Shinda, in English]
Building up something in the head,

how he wanted to do it.

[sings in Punjabi]

[in English] But like, any flow...

And that's when we realized
we should be making music

because I knew how to write, compose.

And these guys are working on their beats
and doing everything they could.

[ambient music playing]

[Gminxr] It was all organically...
we kind of just all connected.

I would play beats.

These guys would start freestyling.

Collectively, we just started making music

and it started
sounding better and better and better.

[sings in Punjabi]

[Gminxr, in English]
We're on an island.

There's no studios,
there's no record labels.

You know, we're so isolated.

We're just trying to create our own sound.

[AP] We worked on it for over a year.

How to bring this sound.

[Gminxr] We took music from the West

and we combined lyrics
and compositions from back home...

and we kind of created a new genre.

We had no fan base, no nothing,

we just started a YouTube,
we called it Run-Up Records.

The first track that we did was
"Fake" and we put up the song.

["Fake" by AP Dhillon and Gminxr plays]

[Gminxr] Within one day, you know,
it had like, 3000 plays.

By the next morning,
10,000 people had heard it.

I was... you know,
I felt on top of the world,

I was like, "Ten thousand people
are listening to our song

and they're loving it?"

We got a good reaction

and we're like,
maybe we're doing something right.

["Fake" by AP Dhillon
and Gminxr continues]

Yo. Okay... [indistinct chatter]
All right, cool. All right.

[Kevin] Me and Herman grew up together.

We were in Toronto.

Herman heard "Fake."

And, uh, he heard it
the first day AP dropped it.

["Fake" by AP Dhillon
and Gminxr continues]

[Herman] So I listened to this song

and I was like,
"Yo, this is so refreshing. What is this?"

That raw form of art,
there's always that energy behind it.

I was super curious,
'cause it was more of the mystery,

you know what I mean,

like, I need to know everything
about this guy right now.

And Herman just called them,
like, right away.

Same night, right when
the song came out,

I said, "Yo, bro, this is f*cking amazing,

like, where are you from?"

He said, "Hey, I'm based
out of Vancouver Island."

You guys are over there
on the island and like,

this is the type of music
you guys are making and

you don't understand, like,
how powerful it is, like, for the world.

I started to show Kevin

and I think from there we just
built this organic relationship.

[Gminxr] Herman called us, he was like,
"This song's amazing,

keep doing what you're doing."

[sings in Punjabi]

[in English] Right there,
that fuels the fire a little bit more.

[chuckles]

-I'm just charging...
-[man] Ay, ay, ay, go, go, go...

[Kevin] 2020, that's when we first met.

I was not anywhere
near the music industry,

though I was always
kind of interested in it.

I was working for airlines,
warehouses, factories.

AP pulls me and Herman outside.

He's like, "I have $7,000 to my name,

I don't know
where this is going to go,

but I want you to be my manager."

[sings in Punjabi]

[in English] I was like,
"I have $6,000 to my name..."

[laughs]

"...and I don't know
where this is going to go,

and I don't know what being
a manager means

and I never wanted
to be a manager."

[sings in Punjabi]

[Kevin, in English]
But I think at that point in time,

no one really believed in them
like me and Herman did.

You can tell
we were ready to do anything

and everything to make this work.

["Arrogant" music by AP Dhillon playing]

[Gminxr] Now we're motivated.

Now, it's got to the point
where we're in the studio every day.

["Arrogant" by AP Dhillon, Shinda,
and Gminxr plays]

[AP, in English] In the beginning,
we were just so focused on

just creating stuff, creating stuff.

We were experimenting with music
and ourselves, right.

[Gurinder] But there was
like a hope, you know,

when you listen to your music,

you know, if it's good or not,
you could tell.

[Kevin] At this point,
I remember clearly,

AP had like 27,000 followers,
GG had like ten,

Shinda had like
a thousand or something.

So I'm coming from a mindset of like,

this is the biggest thing in the world
and you guys don't even know it.

I'm like, "You're gonna win Oscars,
you're gonna win Grammys,"

you're going to..."
And they were like,

"Chill, like, we're just
trying to make music"

and I was kind of like,
I was getting ahead of myself

because I was so excited.

["Excuses" by AP Dhillon, Gurinder
and Intense plays]

[Kevin] The second I heard "Excuses",

I believed in these guys
more than anything

I've ever believed in my life.

["Excuses" song continues playing]

[AP] "Excuses" track,
that track is the first track

to break into India, Pakistan.

["Excuses" song continues playing]

They all started playing it.

Now they know the lyrics,
they know the flows,

they kinda, you know,
"This is something like, you know..."

"I know this, but what is this," right?

[Gminxr] Music doesn't
really have borders.

You can create music
and it can be heard by the whole world.

But major labels,
like, they never took us seriously.

-[pleasant music playing]
-[birds chirping]

[AP] I was forced to be independent

because nobody wanted
to work with me.

All the labels told me
that it's not going to work.

"This music is sh*t."

[laughs]

Yeah.

I don't know why I never gave up
or, like, how I never gave up,

but it was frustrating.

[AP] But I'm glad that they said it.

You're just creating what you like,
you're doing what you really want to do,

just put something fresh out there

that nobody has done before.

[Kevin] For ten years,
you go to any club in the world,

if you're an Indian person,
the DJs recognizes you're Indian,

he plays Jay-Z, Panjabi MC.

I'm like, "Yeah, at the beginning,
it was cool

but now it's kind of starting
becoming, like, stereotypical."

It's great for our culture,

but I think people
are waiting for the next song.

We were all the time working,
recording in the studio,

trying to, you know, find the one song

which could change everybody's life.

[inaudible singing]

[AP] Shinda called
and he's like, "Yo, I have this idea."

[Shinda] I have this appreciation
for the Brown community.

I saw how good brown people were doing,

grinding all day
and making something out of it.

This needs appreciation.
That was certainly in my mind.

It wasn't like being Brown Munde
or nothing, but like, he has a hook.

[AP sings "Brown Munde"]

[AP, in English] We heard it
and I was like,

"Yo, this is kind of cool."

[Gminxr] "Brown Munde."
The beat, to be honest,

I don't even remember.
Like, I was in my room

and I just found this melody
and I was like, "This is kind of cool."

So I made this, you know, simple beat.

[Gurinder] We went back to the studio,

we all got together and then
we like, fully, like, composed it.

[singing "Brown Munde"]

[AP] Gminxr's just sitting there,
he's like,"Yo, I can't do drums like this.

You know, the R&B track."

I was like, "You're not going to bed

if you don't f*cking finish this beat."

And while he's working on the beat,

Shinda's over there in the corner writing.

The first verse got written.

And then like,
everybody's like, "Oh, this is crazy."

[continues singing "Brown Munde"]

[in English] Two or three hours,
we just, like, made "Brown Munde."

Yeah.

[continues singing "Brown Munde"]

[Herman, in English]
We heard "Brown Munde",

I remember looking at Kevin,
and just like,

"Yeah, this is a f*cking game changer."

[man] Set. sh**t one.

-There you go.
-You know what time it is?

Shinda covered you in there, right?

-Shinda!
-[indistinct chatter]

Millions of us have gone to Canada,
America, UK, Australia, everywhere.

And it's just everybody's story.

You start from nothing and then
you make something out of it.

["Brown Munde" theme music playing]

[AP] "Brown Munde" was to represent us.

That was the whole theme of the video.

To, like, put on the people

those who are doing good in our community.

We do these taxi jobs...

["Brown Munde" playing]

[Herman] Look at the camera, guys!

[AP] We're working in 7-Elevens,
McDonalds, you name it,

but we're also, like, we're artists,

and just owning this is who we are.

[continues singing "Brown Munde"]

[Shinda] So it starts with GG saying...

[speaks Punjabi]

That means, uh,
"Bought a new Lamborghini truck.

And I'm in Hollywood enjoying the life..."

[continues singing "Brown Munde"]

[in English] and then... [speaks Punjabi]

[in English] That means the songs,
the lyrics is Indian, it's Desi,

it's Punjabi and the beat has
an influence of hip-hop and trap.

The whole verse is about appreciation

of what we have done
in a short span of time.

[continues singing "Brown Munde"]

[in English] The day we shot
"Brown Munde..." Oh, my God.

[laughs]

In a single day!

-No, no!
-[in English] Man!

[AP] We planned for the video.

This guys... We're trying to call
everybody we know

and trying to arrange everything, right?

Yo, yo, it starts from
the truck yard right?

And he's on the phone.

We're like "Yo, can we have a restaurant?"

This guy's like, "Bro, I own
some restaurants. You wanna cook there?"

We're like, "Yeah, let's do that."

So we went there...

And they were like, "Yo, we want to
do the construction site..."

He called one of his other buddies,
he was just like,

"Yo, you building any house?"

He's like, "Yeah, I am,"
so we went there...

We winged it.

And it was f*ck' amazing.

[laughter]

-It literally was amazing.
-Straight. Straight.

[Kevin] But when these guys work,

when these guys make music,
there's nobody better at it

and that's where it all starts
and that's where it all ends, you know?

[Gminxr] I remember when we released
"Brown Munde," September 2020,

for the audience that we had
at that time, it did really well,

but it took a few months.

I remember, uh, January, February
is when the India market picked it up

with the help of a lot of celebrity acts
that were into that song.

Really gave it that little bit of push.

It kinda just fully blew up in India.

We hit, like, 100 million views

and that's when I realized,
"Okay, this is big." You know?

[Kevin] I spent two
years watching these guys

making all this music,
sh**ting music videos,

[man] That's good. Hold there.

[Kevin] Feels just like
a bottleneck of like, hype,

all this music's blowing up
and everyone's a fan now

and no one's seen these guys,

like, they could have been holograms
for all they know.

Biggest fan base is in India.

The next step was to finally
go out there and start touring.

[AP] Now, it's my first tour

and I'm like, "Yo, it's time to go."

Like, "Let's go," you know?
"Let's goddam go."

[techno music playing]

The India tour... I just don't know
how it's gonna go.

I just didn't know.

[Kevin] Walking out of
Mumbai airport, all of us landed,

I see a big crowd outside, I'm like,

"Oh, my God, are you guys ready for this?"

AP's like, "They don't really know us
like that. We're not that big."

[AP, in Punjabi] When we came out,
the paparazzi were standing outside.

[in English] So the first word
is just like, "AP! AP! AP!"

And I was like, "Oh, my God."

[clamoring]

When we came out, like,
people jumped on us.

[clamoring]

All the media...
it was like, "Damn, like, this is big."

-[cheering]
-[man] Brown Munde!

[AP] Coming to this,
like, massive country

and everyone kind of know you?

It's crazy, man.

It was my first tour,
and I've never been to a goddam show.

It's my first show.

I'm going on my own f*cking show
for the first time.

But I didn't know there was
gonna be paparazzi at the airport. Like...

I was just like, "Yo, f*ck this is crazy!"

[Gminxr] First time
on stage for all of us.

They told me the first show
was in Gurugram.

I'm like, "Okay, it's probably
going to be like some small show."

And then we get to
that night of the performance,

and all I hear is just this
huge crowd just roaring.

[cheering]

Right away, you know, the energy...

That feeling was just incredible.

-[announcer] Make some noise!
-[cheering]

[cheering]

["Brown Munde" theme music playing]

Can't hear you...

Come on! Everyone, you got that!
At the back.

Make some f*cking noise!

[AP singing "Brown Munde"]

[AP continues singing "Brown Munde"]

[AP continues singing "Brown Munde"]

[AP continues singing "Brown Munde"]

[Nirmika, in English] "Brown Munde" to me
is a story of brotherhood.

A story of brotherhood that is k*lling

a lot of cultural stigmas as well.

[singing in Punjabi]

[Rahul, in English]
It connected beyond just music.

There was a new phenomenon which was
taking shape in front of our eyes.

I think that sense of feeling
that it kind of generated

really allowed it to kind of
transcend boundaries.

[AP continues singing "Brown Munde"]

[Bobby] The ability to
actually reach someone

who's been born in Vancouver or Toronto,

but equally in India,
Pakistan, Bangladesh.

Brown people, literally,
South Asians across the globe.

Everyone's screaming "Brown Munde."

[AP] Seeing that many people
screaming and their energy,

it was crazy.

[chanting] AP! AP! AP!

[Shinda] I was not prepared for that.

I was looking around... what's happening.

I wasn't going to cry on the stage,
but it was tears in the eyes.

[AP] People see what
we're trying to do here.

And this is the first of a kind, like,
thing that we're doing.

The whole crew's vision is to take
our music to the next stage.

Mainstream music.

[crowd] AP! AP!

We can do it bigger and better.

[all chanting] AP! AP!

We are one step in,
and we have a long way to go.

[all chanting] AP! AP!

[AP] This view's crazy.

-[Gminxr] It's a big inspiration up here.
-Yeah.

[AP] Now, after we took that long a break,

we have to give something better right?

Have to. The fans deserve it.

[Kevin] Leaving India,
the next frontier, North America.

First time in the country doing a show
and it's in an arena,

like, we're barely
three years into our career

and we're doing arenas.

The trajectory is kind of unheard of.

We're going on tour in six weeks.

[Herman] For us to execute this
with the vision that we have,

we're going to have to go back
to the drawing board

and come back with g*ns blazing.

[Kevin] The whole tour's
being announced on Tuesday.

Biggest risk is our first show
on home soil is in an arena.

Yeah.

Who's trying to sell 15000 tickets
on their first show in America?

That's a statement

and a lot of people are going to be
expecting us not to do good.

With that big of a crowd size,

they got these big expectations.

[Kevin]
That's what I mean, yeah.

I don't want us to be
just walk on the stage

"Yo, yo, yo, what's going on?"
Do this this and... No.

It's a show, this time...

-[Gminxr] More theatrics.
-More theatrics.

-[Gminxr] Okay.
-Because that's how we step up the game.

So when we come on the stage,
we just shake the stage.

[Kevin] There are a lot of people
in the industry that will see

what we're doing and be like, "These guys
have no f*cking idea what they're doing."

And maybe they're right, but...

but... we pull this off,

this is the hardest thing
we're ever going to do

but it'll probably be
the best thing for everybody.

["Excuses" by AP Dhillon, Gurinder
and Intense plays]