AP DHILLON - UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

As he settles into superstardom and unlocks a new phase in his career, the genre-defying musician weighs in on evolution, representation and the importance of being himself

- NIDHI GUPTA

AP DHILLON isn't here yet, and yet he has arrived. It's the afternoon after the premiere party for AP Dhillon: First of a Kind-which lasted late into the previous night-and a day before the documentary arrives on Prime Video. He has a busy day ahead of him, busier than most of us, doing something he has been avoiding so far: Meeting the press. Doing his first Rolling Stone cover shoot. And he's running almost two hours behind schedule.

Not that it matters to those who wait. Someone plays "With You" for the third time in a row off a loudspeaker. The room can't help but move to the infectious hook of Dhillon's new track. Meanwhile, social media and websites are tripping on the AP Dhillon news cycle-his arrival in India, that music video, rumours of the budding romance, the impromptu gig in Delhi, the crowd-surfing moment at a college in Mumbai.

Barely three years after his career took off into outer space, AP Dhillon has transformed into the kind of rarefied artist-celebrity that occupies rooms-attention spans, conversations, the very ether-before he even enters them. And when he isn't, he's busy hogging the charts. As I write this, "With You" is second the most-streamed track in India on Apple Music and #3 on Spotify, just behind Jasleen Royal's "Heeriye" (with Arijit Singh and Dulquer Salmaan).

No less than three of AP Dhillon's songs are among Spotify's Top 50 India daily list. It isn't even a new thing. Last year, Dhillon was the only living hip hop artist on Spotify Wrapped 2022's most streamed artists, a list that has been dominated by film music greats like AR Rahman, Arijit Singh, Pritam, Anirudh Ravichander and Shreya Ghoshal. (The only other hip-hop artist was the late Sidhu Moose Wala.)