Music Runs In My Blood

Canada-based Instagram tabla sensation Shobhit Banwait takes pop songs like Sia’s Cheap Thrills, and gives them the desi treatment. Nikita Sawant gets to know the drummer boy.

- Nikita Sawant

MY WIKIPEDIA PAGE IN MY WORDS

I was born and raised in an area called North York, which is part of the Greater Toronto area in Canada. I was very shy and a bit stubborn as a child. I would always avoid any activities that involved group work.

I was exposed to music at a young age. My father had a passion for it and he performed with a band in the ’80s in Toronto. He also played spiritual tunes on the dholak. I started playing the instrument too and trained in it at 13. My classmates would call me  a drummer boy because I’d drum on the desk at school. So, I would say music runs in my blood.

My Instagram career started when I posted a tabla cover of a song called 679 by Fetty Wap. An account with a large following reposted it and people started messaging me for the full cover since Instagram only allowed 15-second videos at the time. So, I made a Facebook page and posted the full Fetty Wap song on it. The cover got about 185K views. My page was flooded with messages from all over the world.