Dhanda Nyoliwala

Queensland’s Parveen Dhanda—aka Dhanda Nyoliwala—is on a mission to place his home state of Haryana firmly on the hip-hop map. The rapper, who grew up in the village of Nyoli but later moved to Australia, blends Harvanyi rhymes over rattling trap on tracks like 2022’s “Up To U” and 2023’s “No Mercy”, even attempting sitar-led beats on 2021’s appropriately titled “First Haryanvi Drill”. In 2020’s multilingual “Afgan”, there’s even a line in English that encapsulates the artist’s clear pride in his global background—“From India to Australia, man.” The rising star also produced and directed the video for his own relentless 2021 stomper “Yamaha”, which notched up streams by the millions. Following the single’s release, he commented that it marked a “new era of Haryanvi music”. Haryanvi rap may have gone unnoticed in the shadow of neighbouring Punjab’s hip-hop—but not for long, if Dhanda Nyoliwala has his way.