“Beeba munda (A good boy).” It’s a description that has followed Diljit Dosanjh all his life. Forty years, this January. From the old timers in his village and the music producer, who gave him his first break when he was all of 16, to the present crop of globetrotting directors he works with, these two words always crop up when you mention him.

The turbaned singer-actor with the goofy smile, who sent Ed Sheeran’s fans into a tizzy with his surprise appearance on his Mumbai stage last month and had the English singer trot out a line in Punjabi, is taking his music to places it had never gone before. In April 2023, he became the first Punjabi artiste to perform at Coachella, the annual music and arts festival held in California, announcing ‘Punjabi aa gaye Coachella ve (The Punjabis have arrived in Coachella)’. He was also the highest-selling Indian artiste at Brisbane Entertainment Centre last year. He makes no bones about his rustic Punjabi roots, yet he is as celebrated in Bollywood as he is in Pollywood.