Sonam Kalra interview: ‘Art must be used for something greater than oneself’

I think it’s always first felt. So it would be correct to say, spiritually. It begins with silence. And then with the text. The text is always of great importance to me — there is so much power in beautifully written poetry.

The meaning, the feeling behind the words always comes first. Perhaps I don’t approach poetry like a composer picking a song, but like a seeker asking, ‘what is it you want to say through me?’ Whether it’s a verse by Bulleh Shah or Amir Khusrau, a gospel hymn or a Nirgun Bhajan, I try to listen deeply, to let the words lead me, to let them tell me what they want to become.

But before developing the melody, there is a quietude I sit with — a kind of listening. The melody is born from that — from the emotional and spiritual pull of the text. If I am writing a text then it is the intention of what I want to say that comes first to me. Sometimes, when I am composing something it arrives quickly, like a breath. Sometimes I have to wait for days. With every piece, after I have done the initial work, I let it sit — take some space from it—before I revisit it and that is when I am able to nuance it further.

There’s something incredibly moving about how you bring together poetry that’s been politicised over decades and offer it back to the world in a way that feels healing, and perhaps not combative. When you combine Faiz’s ‘Hum Dekhenge’ with Tagore’s ‘Where the Mind is Without Fear’, how do you navigate that space where art becomes protest but also prayer? Does it ever feel like you’re standing at the intersection of too many tensions, or do you see it as your calling to hold those contradictions together in a single breath?

In protest, there is hope — and in hope, there is prayer. So perhaps protest and prayer are not separate things at all, not when the world is hurting. I want my music to hold both strength and healing. To be gentle, and yet unafraid.

For me, singing Faiz and Tagore together is not just about artistic juxtaposition, it is about reclaiming their words as an offering of hope, as a plea for peace. When I sing Hum Dekhenge-Where the Mind is Without Fear, I’m not shouting, I’m stating quietly, reminding, and hopefully speaking to a part of your humanity deep within you.

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So, there is this pull between the sacred and the secular, between the personal and the political. But I’ve come to believe that this is my path: to hold those contradictions together, tenderly, and hopefully let the music speak where language cannot. I’ve always believed that artists are the conscience, the voice of society. It is our duty to hold a mirror to society, to show them their truths and nudge their consciences in the right direction. And as artists we must uphold this responsibility with care. I feel art must be used for something greater than oneself and not solely for the purpose of entertainment.

You’ve performed in these massive, awe-inspiring venues — the Sydney Opera House, the Pyramids of Egypt — but your music still manages to feel like it’s speaking directly to the heart. When you’re standing on that stage, thousands of miles from home, does the sacredness of your message change? Do you find that the meaning of a kalam or a gospel chorus changes depending on who’s listening even though the message remain the same?

The sacredness of the message remains constant for me because it is rooted in truth, but the depth of the message sometimes expands with the space, the moment, or the energy of the people present. Some occasions awaken something more profound. Singing at the Sydney Opera House on my late mother’s birthday held a sanctity that I cannot put into words — it felt like a deeply personal conversation with her soul. She is the reason I sing so that felt extremely special.

Performing at Jahan-e-Khusrau, a festival steeped in Sufi tradition and blessed by the voices of greats like Abida Parveen, was equally humbling — like stepping into a lineage of devotion. I truly felt like my whole world was in equilibrium at that moment. And then there are moments that feel almost divinely orchestrated — like performing Partition: Stories of Separation before Indian and Pakistani audiences sitting together in the same theatre in the US that communion — across borders, across wounds — felt like sacred ground.

When people truly receive the music — not just hear it, but feel it — something shifts. The performance becomes more than sound; it becomes a shared prayer. And in that moment, we are not divided by identity, we are united by spirit. That, to me, is the deepest sacredness.

What I find truly fascinating about your work is that it refuses to be slotted into the boxes we usually reserve for “fusion” or “world music.” You’re blending instruments and styles but also dissolving boundaries of language, culture, and even theology. Through the Sufi Gospel Project, you have essentially invented a new vocabulary. Was there ever a moment in the early days of the project where you thought, ‘Am I allowed to do this?’ or did it feel like something that was simply waiting to be done?

I can’t remember being the sort of person who has ever asked for permission to be. And for that I have my parents to thank. They always encouraged us to be free thinking, to be brave, to stand our ground and to trust ourselves. When I created the Sufi Gospel Project, it was led by intuition and followed with intellect.

Were there moments of doubt? Yes. Did I wonder what the traditionalists would say? Yes. I was bringing together different traditions, different faiths, different texts, weaving Gospel with Gurbani, Sufi with Bhakti, and poetry with prayer. But then I asked myself: Who gives us permission to speak our truth? We do.

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The music I create within The Sufi Gospel Project is not typically ‘fusion music’ but more of a fusion of ideologies — poetry, prayer and music from seemingly disparate cultures, traditions and regions. And I say seemingly, because the more I look at our differences the more I find through them, our similarities. It is an attempt to remind us that each of us has our own truth and you can find that truth in a temple, a shrine, a church or a mosque but the most important thing to remember, is that each truth is just as valid. Simply put, I wanted to, through the music, talk about equality, inclusion of all beings and of acceptance. And say that many different calls to God can and must exist in harmony.

The Sufi Gospel Project wasn’t created as a concept. It was born from a need, a longing perhaps, to remind people to be kinder and more accepting. Even when I created Partition: Stories of Separation, I don’t think I ever asked myself, am I allowed to talk about this? I just knew that I had to. I felt compelled to create a performance piece that would give voice — through music — to a traumatic chapter in our history. It was my way of honouring the legacy of Partition survivors, of bearing witness to their pain, their resilience, and their stories. To remind people of who we were before the Partition, and to hopefully find a peaceful way forward through dialogue.

In ‘Alfat,’ based on Bulleh Shah’s poetry, there is a gorgeous, unsettling kind of intimacy in the way the composition unravels — quietly, almost like someone meditating aloud. There’s a line, ‘My temple, my church, my mosque lie within the walls of my heart.’ In today’s India, especially, that line seems to echo a defiant tone. Was it important for you to let the political resonance of that line remain, or were you more interested in creating a space where all interpretations are welcome?

These beautiful words by Baba Bulleh Shah, continue to echo across centuries and borders. They weren’t written to defy or provoke, but to evoke and awaken, to remind us that the Divine is not confined to bricks and rituals, but lives within each of us, in the quiet sanctuary of each heart. These lines hold everything I believe in. Everything I want to say through my music.

But are these lines political? Perhaps only in a world where unity feels threatening. Because to say “my temple, my church, my mosque lie within me” is to dissolve division — and in doing so, a powerful yet peaceful form of resistance takes shape.

But above all, these words are spiritual because they are a call back to love — to the essence that connects us all beyond religion, beyond region, beyond label. Which is also why, when I composed Alfat — from which these lines are taken — I wanted it to sound like a celebration. A celebration of the realisation that we are all children of the same humanity, and that there is divinity within each being.

You’re one of the few contemporary musicians who seem completely comfortable with contradiction. Your music can be both devotional and disruptive. You sing about love but also protest, about longing and surrender, but also a very grounded, earthly kind of justice. Do you think that’s what makes it resonate so deeply across borders?

Honestly, you’ve described my music in such a layered way, thank you for that. I can’t tell you what makes the music resonate perhaps it’s because deep down, we all want the same things that I try and say through the music: love, belonging, peace. Or perhaps it’s because my music comes from a place of truth. I try to create music that holds space for contradictions because so do we. We’re all a mosaic of paradoxes: faith and doubt, hope and despair, longing and contentment, silence and sound. And it’s these beautiful contradictions that we’re made of, that make us human. So shouldn’t the music reflect that too? Perhaps that’s what allows the music to connect because it doesn’t shy away from the complexity. It just leans into it, gently and allows it to be.

At a time when most silence has become a norm, you choose again and again to lend your voice to movements, protests, dissent. When people call your work ‘activist music’ or say you’re being political, how do you respond to that? Do you sometimes want to resist being labelled at all? Do you ever feel exhausted by that expectation to always be brave, or does the music sustain you in a way that keeps you going no matter what the noise around you says?

The one thing I was always certain about was that I wanted to sing not just to entertain, but to make a difference, however small that may be. I never set out to be political; I set out to tell my truth. But sometimes, when one tells the truth, takes on a cause, others see it as a form of resistance. Even if you speak of basic human rights it’s seen as political or activist.

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Isn’t all art supposed to make you think? To move you? If the music raises a question, opens a conversation or makes you rethink something, then it’s doing what it was meant to do. Whether that’s called activism or not, I leave that to others.

I just sing about what I feel, about the things that move me, about the things that I wish we spoke about more, about the things I hope for, with the desire that we can make a shift. And if that sparks thought or change, then it’s done what it was meant to do.

And yes, the music does sustain me and keep me going, no matter what the noise around me says. And no, I don’t feel weighed down by the expectation to always be brave — I like being brave — or by the idea of being labelled. I know people often find comfort in labels — they make things easier to understand — but I’ve just never felt the need for them.

Your music is like an invitation — you’re constantly asking the listener to come in closer. Has your understanding of what it means to be a performer changed over the years? Do you think of yourself now less as a singer and more as a sort of conduit — someone through whom these words and melodies pass, but who also has the responsibility of honouring where they came from?

That’s a really beautiful way to put it. I think we’re all here for a reason. I do believe that each of us has a purpose greater than ourselves, a responsibility to give back in some way. So perhaps we’re all conduits of something.

That said, I’ve often found that when I’m grappling with an idea musically or reflecting on a thought spiritually, a quiet revelation will come — and suddenly, everything falls into place, almost mystically, and begins to make sense. So maybe, as the Sufi mystics and poets have long believed, we are all vessels — through whom these words, these melodies travel. And maybe my small role as one of many, is simply to honour them, to give voice to them and let them pass through me, with honesty.

Over the years, I do feel the music and the performance have become less about me and more about the we — meeting one another in our shared truths, in something tender and deeply human, held gently in prayer, in a quiet ibādat.

If you had to imagine a listener — maybe a young person in a small town, someone who’s confused, angry, searching for a way to belong — what would you hope they hear in your music, the deeper intention behind it? Do you think it’s possible that a song, just one song, can change something inside a person? And has a listener ever told you something that reminded you why you started doing this in the first place?

I hope they hear many things. That kindness matters. That the only religion worth following is the religion of humanity. That acceptance is more important than tolerance. That belonging isn’t about fitting into a box — it’s about embracing your differences, and the differences of those around you. That being different is not just okay, it’s beautiful. That love is always the answer. That we have the power, both as individuals and collectively, to change the narratives of hate in the world. That dialogue is important. That peace is the way forward.

Music has had such a profound impact on my life. It has grown my heart, changed me, healed me and held me through sadness and joy. For me, music isn’t just what I do — it’s who I am. I remember, after a concert in Hong Kong, a woman came up to me and said something I’ll never forget. She told me that she had always believed her religion was superior to all others, but after hearing the music that evening, something shifted. She said she was able to see, maybe for the first time, that there is beauty in every faith. So, when a listener tells me that my music helped them find answers or moved them deeply that reminds me why I do this. Because maybe, just maybe, my music can help shift something inside a person. That’s the hope.