Continuing on with my series of highlighting various AAPI artists, I would like to introduce the next artist, Dhruv.
You might have seen his name if you happen to use TikTok. His song “Double Take” was released in 2019 and was used in over 2.8M videos racking up over 280M views. It was the catalyst for the launch of his career as a musician.
Dhruv Sharma, known as dhruv, is a 22-year-old Indian-Singaporean R&B artist. He grew up listening to Bollywood music, because of his dad who would sing at family events, and Western artists as well like the Beatles and Amy Winehouse. Growing up he and his sister would make up melodies and songs on the piano and guitar they had in their house. He wrote a lot of music that he uploaded to Soundcloud while he was in Singapore and even gained a small following.
While music was still something he dabbled in during his free time, he was actually a student at Yale studying Data Science and Statistics when he released the song Double Take. Once he released this song, much earlier than his song ever blew up on the internet, he realized that music was something he wanted to formally pursue as a career.
“Double Take” if you don’t know is a dreamy track about falling in love with your best friend. About that moment where you have to do a double take cause you see your friend in a different way than you used to before.
He released two other songs titled “Moonlight”, which I wrote about in this post, and “Vulnerable”.
What I personally enjoy about his music is how light and magical he makes his songs sound. Of course, not everyone is into that type of vibe when listening to music, but it is something that Dhruv has perfected. Each song in his EP “Rapunzel” has this airiness to it but still manages to capture a distinct feeling or emotion pertaining to various aspects of being in love or falling in love.
The Singaporean artist is a self-proclaimed introvert and writing music was a way of how he shared his thoughts and feelings as an observer. Expressing himself through his music was an outlet for all the opinions and thoughts he had brewing in his mind that he was never able to share out loud. He felt alienated growing up as one of the only queer kids in his conservative community and all of that is reflected through the songs in “Rapunzel”, whether it’s about his experience of falling in love with his best friend, overcoming heartbreak, or showing his true self to someone and being vulnerable.
His work puts you right in his shoes. The soft acoustic chords or his guitar or his melodious voice feel like a warm hug and easily raise your spirits.
His music is his coming-of-age story. Not only about romantic love but about self-love too.
A story where he is finally the main character and has control of his own narratives.
Check out Dhruv’s discography on Spotify!
