Instagram story viewer> @sammychand> Posts

Sammy Chand

@sammychand

3.3K

followers

2098

following

Host of The Bridge - Only daily show for
South Asian Music & Culture @iheartradio. 🎙️
Music Producer & Executive
@rukusavenue @rukusavenueradio 💼

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

At 16, Amaal Mallik used to stand outside a gate in Mumbai with a keyboard and no songs.

The gate belonged to Vishesh Films. Mukesh and Mahesh Bhatt. The house that gave India Aashiqui. He’d watch young directors walk in, Emraan Hashmi walk out, and think: once this gate opens and I get to play one song, I’ve arrived.

He didn’t even have a song yet. He just knew that was the room.

Here’s the part people get wrong. They hear the surname, grandfather Sardar Malik, uncle Anu, father Daboo, and assume the gate opened for him. His grandfather worked with the Bhatts’ father in the ’50s. His uncle worked with the Bhatts in the ’70s and ’80s. His dad in 2001.

The call still took him 20 years.

In between: a debut with Salman Khan attached that tanked. Headlines calling him “not a chip off the old block.” 2014, the family losing the house and both cars. A phone call to his masi in New Zealand, telling her he’d come work at a McDonald’s or a petrol station.

Nine months later, “Sooraj Dooba Hain.”

Then 12 years and almost 143 songs. And finally, “Yeh Awarapan.” Written with Rashmi Virag from, he says, a very dark place. Two years in the making. Sung with Arijit Singh. From Awarapan 2, with Emraan Hashmi, presented by Mukesh Bhatt. The gate, finally, from the inside.

Number one song in the country. On the global charts. His words: all 20 years of that pain are in this one song.

He has a line for this. Samay se pehle aur kismat se zyada kisi ko nahi milta. Before your time and beyond your fate, nobody gets anything.

What I want to know Tuesday: what does the 36-year-old say to the 16-year-old still standing outside that gate?

Turns out he never left. @amaal_mallik

🎙️ Tuesday, 9 AM PT | The Bridge with Sammy Chand
📻 Rukus Avenue Radio & iHeartRadio

#TheBridge #AmaalMallik #YehAwarapan #Awarapan2 #ArijitSingh #RashmiVirag #BollywoodMusic #RukusAvenueRadio #iHeartRadio by @sammychand

252

67

4 days ago

Nihaarika had a Sony Music India deal before she knew who she was.

Most artists would call that the dream. She calls it the problem.

Tuesday on The Bridge, I sit down with her to get into why.

Here’s where she’s coming from. A middle-class girl from UP, her words, making music out of Delhi. A family full of doctors and engineers, where the degree matters more than the education. Nobody in that house knows a thing about music. She’ll tell you she thought this dream was “only for big people.”

Her Instagram bio says “multi-grain artist.” If she were a bread, she’d be the multi-grain one. Won’t be boxed into one genre. Won’t take social media as seriously as everyone else does.

Then the label comes early. Big break, right? She says it cut both ways. She had the platform. She had the craft. What she didn’t have yet was the clarity. Where she grew up, most of a girl’s decisions get made for her, and the moment called before she had the chance to know herself.

So when the contract ended, she went independent. Not against labels. For herself.

Now, an artist walking into the independent space isn’t new. It’s been happening as long as there have been labels. But autonomy has its value, and hers is specific. What Nihaarika figured out is that she wants to be clear on how she presents herself. Not just the sound. The person. And maybe, she’ll admit, she didn’t give herself enough time to figure that out before the first big yes.

Her theory on why most artists don’t last: ten lakh people are making good songs every day. The rare thing is standing for something. And you can’t give words to a struggle you’ve never felt.

That’s the story here. Early success, then the hard part: going out to find her own identity, and coming back in a form that’s actually hers.

What I want to know Tuesday: who did she find out there? And what does she sound like now that she’s the one writing the narrative?

The break came early. The artist is arriving now. @nihaarikax.x

🎙️ Tuesday, 9 AM PT | The Bridge with Sammy Chand
📻 Rukus Avenue Radio & iHeartRadio

#TheBridge #Nihaarika #IndependentArtist #Delhi #IndianMusic #RukusAvenueRadio #iHeartRadio by @sammychand

98

12

4 days ago

Everybody in rap wants to tell you how far they’ve come. Yelhomie wants you to know where he’s from.

Manipur. Northeast India. A place he says the world has been “blind and deaf” to: killings, curfews, families displaced inside their own state. So he named himself after his people. Yelhomie means indigenous. For him, representation comes first.

Look at what that costs. His new seven-track mixtape closes on the story of some close to him who died in Manipur before he could raise his daughter. Every word is true. And it’s written in a language that isn’t even his first.

That’s the trade nobody talks about. You can make music that makes people dance, or you can make music that makes people see. Yelhomie knows his catalog is heavy. So he drops a “Run It Up” to let people breathe, and then he goes right back to the hard story, because somebody has to tell it.

So when a 12-year-old in Manipur says, “I want to be you,” what do you tell him? I have a feeling Yelhomie won’t sell him a dream. He’ll tell him the truth.

The truth is the whole point. The people are the whole point. And the world is finally starting to listen.

Monday, Yelhomie joins me on The Bridge. @yelhomie @rukusavenueradio

#Yelhomie #TheBridge #Manipur #IndianHipHop #NortheastIndia by @sammychand

1k

10

4 days ago

A torn knee ligament is the reason you know Mahlan Wala 59.

He was 17. Middle-class family in Punjab. He’d watched how hard home was working just to hold together, so he left. Landed in Auckland, New Zealand. Worked. Played kabaddi for four, five years.

Then the knee went.

For an athlete, that’s usually the end of the story. For him, it was the first time he had to sit still long enough to think.

Nobody in his family made music. No training. Just a kid who used to sing along at kirtan in the village gurdwara, a head full of UK Punjabi records, and lyrics he was writing for his friends to sing.

Then the question hit him: if I’m putting this much energy into other people’s songs… why not my own?

Corona. He starts posting freestyles on Instagram from New Zealand. They go viral.

First session with producer Spy Boy. First beat Spy plays. Ten minutes later, “Scenario” is written. That song is now sitting around 30 million streams.

Now here’s why this week matters.

He went to Bombay, linked with Kolkata rapper Jatriks, and wrote his verse for “Unlimited” in 15 to 20 minutes. The hook tells you everything:

“Limited bohot hai circle sada, unlimited ne vair mere.”
My circle is small. The people against me? Unlimited.

That’s not a flex. That’s the math of a guy who left home at 17, lost the sport he came for, and built a career with no blueprint. The circle stays small because he knows exactly who was there.

What I want to know Thursday: when the knee went, did he think it was over? Or did he already know?

Thursday we world premiere “Unlimited” on The Bridge, one day before it drops everywhere on Friday, Oct 16. And Mahlan Wala 59 makes history as the first guest we’ve EVER had from New Zealand.

Sometimes the injury is the assignment.
@mahlanwala59
🎙️ Thursday, 9 AM PT | The Bridge with Sammy Chand
📻 Rukus Avenue Radio & iHeartRadio

#TheBridge #MahlanWala59 #Unlimited #WorldPremiere #PunjabiHipHop #NewZealand #Auckland #RukusAvenueRadio #iHeartRadio by @sammychand

53

8

4 days ago

Monday morning on The Bridge, I sit down with the one and only Nayab Midha — and this conversation is pure heart.

Here's the story that gets me. A struggling poet with a twenty-minute set, selling thirty, forty tickets on a good night. Then one poem — Muskurao — goes viral overnight. Three hundred tickets sell, and she has seven days to invent a real show. She walks on stage with seventeen handwritten pages, performs for three and a half hours because she doesn't know what to cut… and walks off to a standing ovation. That accidental night became Rajkumari — the show that made her the first female Indian artist to headline a solo international tour. Last week she packed eight hundred seats in New Jersey.

And the family part. She followed her father's path into the engineer's life for two and a half years. Then she called him: I heard you for two and a half years. Now hear me. And he did — "go for it, and anything you need, I'm here for you."

But here's what I most want you to understand. Nayab deserves to be commended for something she may never see the direct benefit of. She planted an entire swath of land with seeds, knowing she may never sit under those trees to enjoy their shade. The venues that once said no to Hindi poetry now say yes — because she fought that fight first. She opened the door for so many poets and storytellers who may never fully understand what she did for them. That's a pioneer. Her impact — as an entrepreneur, as a poet — is already worthy of legacy. Give her the flowers now.

She flies home with Mexican hot sauces in her suitcase and one discovery: we're all living very similar lives. We all feel the same things.

Monday at 9 AM — on The Bridge. The poet who turned an accident into an empire, fear into "fearless," and a locked door into an open one for everybody behind her. @iheartradio @rukusavenueradio @nayab.midha by @sammychand

139

1

11 days ago

For a show about dance, a 🔥 soundtrack is non-negotiable. My first call for the music for BOLLYWOOD DANCE U was to my brothers @sammychand and @lyricalknockout at @rukusavenue - who I had worked with previously on the soundtrack for Indian Matchmaking. The mandate was simple: music that will get people on their feet, from South Asian artists around the world. Sammy and Raoul more than delivered. These tracks will take over your nervous system in the best possible way. We’ve put them together on a Spotify playlist for all to enjoy - this is literally what I listen to on the treadmill at the gym everyday. Thank you to Rukus Avenue and to all the artists and managers who moved mountains to be a part of this labor of love.

⭐️ Tracy De Sá, “Chalo” @tracy.desa
⭐️ Royal, “Eshe Gechi [Bassdoctor Remix]” @royalshaunak @itsthebassdoctor
⭐️ Cartel Madras, “Goonda Gold” @cartel.madras
⭐️ C.U.T., “Level Up” @cutuptechnique
⭐️ RMS ft. Lackhoney “Freefall” @rms_nj
⭐️ J2, “Sumn4U” @indiantrap
⭐️ Royal, “Shoriye Dao”
⭐️ Raja Kumari, “Made In India” @therajakumari

Unreleased
⭐️ DJ Ravidrums, “Move Like Dis” @djravidrums
⭐️ Rishi Rich, “Peg Pilade” & many more
⭐️ Roach, “Vaja Riddim” & many more @roachkillaofficial by @sammychand

51

10

17 days ago

Shomin Mathur is proof that you always come back to what you loved as a kid.

Picture him growing up in the DC area — Indian music in the house, Linkin Park in his headphones, playing guitar in rock bands. And noticing, early, that none of the frontmen looked like him. He loved the music anyway.

Then comes the mentor. At NYU's Clive Davis Institute, the late, great Bob Power — the engineer behind A Tribe Called Quest — watched this kid making hip-hop beats and told him the truth: your heart is in rock. Your voice goes there. You're going to be a frontman — and don't let anyone tell you that you can't.

It took years for Shomin to trust that. Years of shape-shifting between genres, of not trusting his gut. And then he did the thing so few of us have the courage to do — he committed. At twenty-nine, Black Mustang Defense was born. One man, a band's worth of instruments — piano, sax, sitar, some of them self-taught — and twelve years of learning production so a 2 AM idea never had to wait on anybody's permission.

Here's the twist I love most. One of his band's biggest cities isn't in America. It's Mumbai. A diaspora kid flying the nu metal flag — and India is flying it right back.

His new one, "Casino Always Wins," is a cautionary tale about the vices we keep feeding. But Shomin's own story is the opposite bet: put everything on your authentic self, and the house doesn't stand a chance.

That's the conversation. On The Bridge. @iheartradio @rukusavenueradio @shominofficial by @sammychand

51

37

20 days ago

Tuesday morning, Hanita Bhambri joins me on The Bridge — and this one is a story about twenty-four hours.

Picture it. One day she's an independent singer-songwriter driving around Mumbai, putting out her own music, watching the numbers like every artist does. A phone call later, the entire course of her life changes. Vishal Mishra's team brings her in to write English lyrics for a massive film. Not to sing. To write.

And here's the moment I need to hear her tell in her own words: somewhere in the middle of presenting those lyrics… she starts humming.

You know how the story ends — hers is the voice on "Toxic," the title track of the Yash film, one of the biggest releases in the country. But I'm told she didn't even know it was the title track. I'm told the director heard her sing for the first time over a phone on speaker. I'm told the first draft was approved without changing a single word. That's not luck. That's readiness — and I want to know what that kind of readiness costs.

Because here's the part that gets me. Years ago, she missed a call from that very studio — wrong city, wrong day — and thought the door had closed forever. So she wrote it down in a diary instead: I will work with Vishal Mishra. She still has that diary.

She's been writing since she was eleven — before she could even sing. She's played SXSW in Austin and come home with songs. And she believes Indian pop is here to take on the world. Tuesday, we put all of it on the table: the diary, the twenty-four hours, and what it takes to be prepared when the moment finally calls your name.

Tuesday at 9 AM — on The Bridge. And we play "Toxic" right out of the conversation. @iheartradio @hanitabhambri @rukusavenueradio by @sammychand

36

4

a month ago

Monday morning, Celina Sharma sits down with me on The Bridge — and I've been waiting for this one.

Because Celina might be what the future of this business looks like.

Follow the map. Half Indian, half Italian and Maltese. Raised in Australia. At sixteen, she boards a plane to London — alone — to chase this. Behind her, a mother who'd been cutting work to drive her two hours to Sydney for singing lessons, the same mother who finally told her: you've wanted this your whole life. School can wait.

Now comes Chapter 2, her new EP — and she's called it the first time she's really let people into her world. Which tells me the people who've followed her since sixteen are about to meet the real Celina. I want to know who that is.

And I have to ask her about "Centre of Peace." A song about God and finding stillness, born in a writing room in Johannesburg, finished with bansuri and sarangi, final vocals cut in Mumbai — and crowned by the one and only Sonu Nigam, the sole feature on the entire project. A song that crossed three continents before it ever reached your ears.

No borders. No boundaries. A child of the world — backed by Larry Jackson's gamma., the same machine behind Snoop and Usher, making its first move into our music through her.

That's the conversation Monday morning: the leap, the mother, the faith, and what it means to build a career with no home address.

Monday at 9 — on The Bridge. And we'll play "Centre of Peace" right out of the conversation. @rukusavenueradio @iheartradio @celina_sharma taken in Hollywood, California by @sammychand

13

2

a month ago

What struck me about Bali is awareness.

He knows exactly who he is. He's humble about the art form — and completely clear that his identity is his best asset. He knew early that the wit would walk him through the door. He'll probably tell you himself: he doesn't try to be funny. He is funny. Everything else was just learning where to aim it.

But don't let the funny man stuff fool you.

Watch how he articulates his character all the way down — through the lyrics, into the production they sit on. It's a parade of his talents, like some kind of military procession. The arsenal is on full display. Humor is just the bullet.

And here's why Bali is the future of what an artist has to do. He built a narrative bigger than the music — carried his unmistakable identity onto those reality shows and refused to bend it for votes or good books. The Bali on your TV is the Bali in the booth is the Bali in real life. You have to commend the honesty. That's a family in a parking lot where the grandmother, the father, and the kids are all fans of the same man — for the same reason.

You're not looking at an artist at work. You're looking at a man who figured out that his authentic self is the greatest weapon he possesses — because it can't be faked, and therefore it can't be shaken. He is living proof that what is authentic will win, regardless of art form.

Bali connected all of it — television, music, character — through one line: authenticity is efficient. And when you're efficient, you're dangerous. And to be funny? You have to be dangerous.

That's the conversation. On The Bridge. @rukusavenueradio @iheartradio @theofficialbali by @sammychand

24

5

a month ago

Yung Sammy might be the most emblematic artist we've ever had on The Bridge.

Seven years old. A Nigerian pastor's son lands in Delhi — and the school won't even let him skip Hindi class. Eighteen years later, the language he had no choice but to learn is the one he's sharing with the world.

His bicultural story is fascinating, but what struck me is that how he embraced our culture is a story of pure love. Nothing about it was forced. His Nigerian upbringing taught him reverence — you hear it in the way he honors his parents, even when he feared their disapproval. And Delhi taught him the tongue. Two homes, each giving him half of who he is.

I loved his demeanor. How he carries himself. This is a man who was cut from a TV show two days before his ticket — wrong passport — and almost walked away from rap entirely. Then he dropped one song out of loyalty to a friend's verse, and it changed his life within a week. When a door closes on a man like that, a bigger one opens. He'll tell you that himself.

He started as "the guy who raps in Hindi." Now the world knows him by his name.

Yung Sammy is one of the best in our Indian hip-hop space — but more than that, he's a story of the new world. A new generation of borderless identity, where your language is your choice and your culture is the one you love. He grew up in Delhi and Nigeria. But his story belongs to the world.

That's the conversation. Thursday, on The Bridge. @iheartradio @rukusavenueradio @yungsammy___ by @sammychand

18

5

2 months ago

For this genre to grow — for it to hold more individuality — Punjabi music needs a wider narrative. And when I listen to Simar, I hear a piece of that narrative we haven't been told in its own light: the story of the Toronto scene, from a woman's perspective.

That matters. Because this is a scene built on individuality — but for all of it, we've never had a figure completely drenched in Toronto's multiculturalism truly carry the female experience within it. That story has been waiting for someone to tell it. Simar is telling it.

And she's not new to this. She's seasoned. Her latest body of work, Billo, is intentional — a fierce, deliberate claim to a place in Punjabi music she's more than poised to take.

Here's what makes it bigger than one artist, though. Everybody's putting out new music. What Simar is doing is different. She's widening the playing field — not just for herself, but for the space itself. She's making room in the story for the people who come after her.

That's the conversation. Monday, on The Bridge. @rukusavenueradio @simarsworld_ @iheartradio by @sammychand

98

4

2 months ago