KOAD Samples ‘Lathe Di Chadar’ For A Cinematic Ode To Growing Up Between Cultures
KOAD’s self-produced single ‘bollywood and hip hop’ blends trap production, Bollywood-inspired maximalism, and South Asian folk influences through a sample of the Punjabi folk song Lathe Di Chadar. Built around themes of diasporic identity, cultural pride, and growing up between Bollywood and hip-hop, the track combines distorted 808-heavy rap production with Punjabi and Gujarati references, while the music video extends KOAD’s glossy, cinematic visual language through celebratory and festive South Asian imagery.
KOAD is an Indian-American rapper, producer, and director from Los Angeles whose music mixes hip-hop with Bollywood references, big cinematic production and melodic rap. He started building an audience online through tracks like ‘Jaunty' and 'ENUFF,’ but ‘deepika’ became the song that really blew up, spreading fast across reels and edits because of its references to his crush Deepika Padukone, its catchy hook, and KOAD’s charming delivery. The track also got a boost after Ranveer Singh reposted it online.
His sound moves between distorted rap production, emotional hooks, flex-heavy writing, and sharp pop culture references, while his music videos lean into glossy Bollywood-style imagery with bright colours, stylised performances, cultural aesthetics, and a larger-than-life celebration of his heritage.
In his latest self-produced single, ‘bollywood and hip hop’ the artist samples the Punjabi folk song ‘Lathe Di Chadar,’ a playful Punjabi folk love song built around flirtation, longing, and shy romance. The woman in the song keeps calling out to her lover, asking him not to walk past her angrily and to come stand in front of her instead. The 'lathe di chadar' itself — a simple cotton sheet — becomes a symbol of modest beauty and everyday romance. A lot of the song’s charm comes from teasing exchanges, waiting for someone you love, and the small emotional dramas of village life and Punjabi wedding culture.
In his track, the sample takes on a hard-hitting trap 808 beat accompanied a garba rhythm of hi-hats, with KOAD’s verses exploring his identity as a diasporic kid who has never visited the ‘homeland’ and grew up on a mix of Bollywood and hip-hop. His music videos have already been vibrant and full of South Asian aesthetics, particularly in his last track ‘Dirty’ which called out the hypocrisy of Western society's prejudice against Indians despite their eager consumption of Indian culture, food, and fashion. In this track, he goes even harder, celebrating Punjabi, Gujarati and African-American communities in a very swaggy, sequined pink lehenga.
Follow KOAD here and watch the music video at the top of the page.
