A few weeks ago, on a quiet back street in downtown Los Angeles, a meeting with momentous implications for the future of global pop took place as the city went on about its business, all unawares. Jacaranda trees shield the low silhouettes of the Arts District’s converted warehouses from view of the traffic inching along nearby Route 101, the lush purple blooms a stark contrast to the omnipresent graffiti and skeletal steel bridges that rise above them to dominate the horizon. But if they had X-ray vision, commuters on this Wednesday afternoon might have noticed two rows of black SUVs lining the street leading to the loading bay of one particular godown. One squadron of vehicles belongs to the entourage of Diljit Dosanjh, actor and reigning king of modern Punjabi music, the other to Team Wang, the small creative collective which has assembled itself around post K-pop prodigy Jackson Wang.
When I arrive, each star is in his assigned dressing room, making whispered style decisions with the various handlers. Emerging from their corners to meet on set, Dosanjh and Wang seem—despite their obvious superficial differences—somehow as matched as bookends, both of medium height and with a similar wiry, athletic build. Wang was, in fact, a competitive fencer before he was discovered by a South Korean talent agency and recruited into the K-pop boy band GOT7 in 2014. As they size each other up, it’s easy to imagine them as sportsmen stepping into an arena, top strikers in their respective games, facing each other over a football pitch. However, once they’re each draped in formal attire and the camera starts clicking, their poise and ease with each other rather suggests two statesmen meeting for a veritable Bandung conference of beats—a reminder that musicians have a far better track record for bridging cultural divides than actual diplomats.
By an accident of air traffic, LA just happens to be the only place the routing of these two global nomads intersect. Wang has just flown in from Korea, a mere 10 hours over the Pacific Ocean (“I thought it was going to be 13 hours! Very nice,” he says, genuinely relieved), while Dosanjh has jetted in from the Atlantic side, flying from London where he has been working on sessions for a new album. (“Not with a mainstream producer,” he quickly clarifies, lest this location be misconstrued as a clue to the details of a forthcoming musical release. “Wherever I am, I always use my own producers.”)
This GQ India cover shoot was, in fact, only the second time the two stars have met in person; although prior to that, “I met him, but he didn’t meet me…” laughs Wang. “I watched him perform. Actually, we were both performing at Coachella the same year [2023], in Sahara Tent; he was the headliner there.
After my performance, I rushed down and watched him. I thought, Oh shit, maybe one day, I’m gonna slide into his DMs and text him for a collaboration. And I finally did.”
Their first face-to-face, however, was on the set of a video shoot for “Buck”, a collaborative track with Dosanjh from Wang’s forthcoming album Magic Man 2. Difficult to categorise but easy to dance to, “Buck” finds Wang jettisoning the pop part of K-pop almost entirely. Built on a frenetic, stuttery drum kit and earthshaking 808 drop that could comprise some new offshoot of drum ’n’ bass if it didn’t match the gothrock energy of the melody so well, it sounds something like a military fife and drum corps soundtracking a chase scene instead of a parade.
A minute or so in, his half-whispered, half-crooned English vocal drops as the beat turns itself momentarily inside out, making way for an incongruous—yet somehow exactly right—Punjabi verse from Dosanjh, who deftly chops the cadences of his 21st-century -boliyaan into sections that fit the jerky rhythm seamlessly.
This, arguably, is the key to Dosanjh’s -particular musical genius. Though sonically grounded in his early exposure to traditional folk music in his childhood home of Dosanjh Kalan in the Jalandhar district of Punjab, the 41-year-old bypassed the old-fashioned route of folk singing contests to try his voice at Punjabi pop. Quickly finding a large audience with a lighter, sweeter tone that still has traces of the throaty runs which characterise rootsier Punjabi folk, his voice seems to sit perfectly atop dancehall rhythms, stomping disco and trap beats alike, a unique alchemy which makes any rhythm somehow a Punjabi rhythm.
“That’s the only feature for my new album,” 31-year-old Wang confides later. “The only artist I -collaborated with was Diljit, and “Buck” was probably the only -uptempo song in the album, so I was matching with that energy.”
Although only accounting for 30 seconds and some change of screentime, Dosanjh’s cameo nicely captures the other qualities that have made him a global star. Whether he’s solving fictional crimes in the new trailer for Detective Sherdil, or overcoming the cultural biases of Amazon’s Alexa with desi humour, somehow, you just gotta like him. This natural charisma and early success in the Punjabi market opened the door for film roles which struck a balance similar to his musical persona, fixing him in the minds of millions of cinemagoers as the archetypal boy-next-door (Jatt & Juliet), while in the same breath embodying a certain regal aspect (Lion of Punjab) that springs eternal in the Punjabi character. Likewise, his ability to pick a hit and tailor his voice to any rhythm that drives it gives him some of the edgy appeal of his frequent collaborator Yo Yo Honey Singh or the late Sidhu Moose Wala, but without the backlash that attended their more gangsterish lyrical personas.
It turns out, appearing effortlessly cool is actually hard work—but of a very specific kind. For instance, being patient while stylists and photographers work their magic with fabric and coloured gels to capture the perfect image requires a level of zen most of us could not hope to maintain on our best day, let alone straight from a red-eye trans-oceanic flight. And then there is the blood-pressure-raising effect of all the diamonds.
One full table just off-set is arrayed with a heist movie’s worth of bling, courtesy of Cartier, in those velvet-lined trays that most of us will naturally picture being tipped into an international thief’s duffel bag—frantically, before the security system re-arms itself and criss-crosses the vault with lasers. Encountered in real life, it is a volume of precious gems that would make any ordinary law-abiding citizen break out in a sweat and question their life choices.
Dosanjh and Wang seem unfazed, but for two music heads, they seem to be equally knowledgeable about the cut and clarity of the gems within the intricate designs, as well as how they’ll work with their other style choices.
Style, in fact, has been a natural bonding point of their budding friendship.“I’m his fan,” Dosanjh says, with frank admiration of Wang’s look. “His attire, his aura… I hadn’t met him but I [already] liked his style. When I got his message, I thought, Oh my god…I have screenshots of this guy’s pictures [from Paris Fashion Week, where Wang is a staple] in my phone.” When I ask about more specific style inspirations, he demurs: “He’s Cartier’s brand ambassador… I just follow him, he’s the style icon, right? So I just go with the flow.” Wang chimes in without missing a beat: “I just follow the King of Punjabi.”
The dressing room table where we sit down for our actual conversation is something less than kingly if only because, in true egalitarian fashion, it’s round. Still, in his Team Wang ensemble with
Nehru (or, if you prefer, Chinese) collar, Dosanjh nevertheless has that statesman-like aura, making this ordinary lunch table feel as if it was commandeered for a sub-committee meeting at the UN. It seems appropriate to start by asking what place each of these world-encompassing artists considers ‘home’ in 2025. “If I have time,” replies Wang, “I would say Shanghai, because I live with my parents.” Dosanjh simply says: “Where the work is.” Although, as his professional surname implies, he seems to take his home -district with him wherever he goes, a feeling he confirms when I ask a similar question about genre: “My base is folk singing [from] Punjab, so yes…I’m still a folk singer.”
For Wang, made famous by his role in a K-pop group but now based in his native China when he’s not criss-crossing the globe, the answer is more complicated. “At this point, honestly, I’m just a part of everything. It’s crazy, because every territory calls me differently. I don’t really care, you know,” he says, kissing his teeth. “Back then, especially coming from a group, you’re doing what you’re told to do, you’re not making decisions for yourself. But with this album, I think it’s 100 per cent personal.”
It brings to mind the conceit of one of GOT7’s most-watched videos-, “Just Right”-, which depicted Wang and his six bandmates as action figures, trapped -in the desk drawer of a pre-teen fan. Some nine years on, Wang has escaped from the drawer, so to speak, but channelled the 360˚ pop art approach he absorbed from K-pop—the choreography, the surreal design in motion—to the much more idiosyncratic vision, which is currently pushing “Buck” to millions of views on YouTube.
“I saw it when I was on the set,” Dosanjh recalls. “This guy is an amazing, amazing talent. For me, he was the director, the producer, the singer. He’s working on everything on the set with the dancers, -costumes and performance. He worked with [director Nicholas Lam], but it really was Jackson’s vision. So I trust his vision, and that was deep. It’s not just the surface-level that you saw, but that video has deep meaning, obviously for him—one hundred per cent—and for us.”
If the set of a video covered with squid tentacles seems like an odd place to meet someone, and for the first time, apparently it was. “I was very nervous,” confides Wang. “Because [at that point] obviously, I didn’t know him as a person. I mean, I knew he’s the legend, the champ, but I didn’t know what to expect, because…it was chaotic, there were explosions… He’s like, What is happening? [laughs] and I’m trying to explain to the team. But then I met him and it became really smooth. He was like, Hey, you do you, man…and whatever position that I have to fit in, whatever kinda character it is, I’ll be all in with it. And I appreciate that a lot.”
At this point, I do my best to take the conversation in a more pretentious direction, inviting them to -expound on the global ramifications of their cross–cultural link-up. With the rare opportunity to get the perspective of these two creators, I want to know: What will be the soundtrack to the world we are now living in? A world that perhaps belongs to neither China nor India so much as the virtual space where they meet to dance. Though there is no doubt that—with each being a top draw in the world’s two most populous nations—this collaboration opens up huge new markets to each of them, these two seem more interested in just hanging out than in total world domination. Although Wang is currently in India to promote Magic Man 2 (at the time of writing), “Maybe one day,” is all Dosanjh will allow regarding the possibility of touring China, Korea or Japan. “I’m just waiting for Jackson and me to perform and share the stage together. For me, that would be a different energy.”
The grander my queries, in fact, the more it seems that what Dosanjh and Wang are conspiring at is not some unified field theory of global pop music but a genuine organic connection. After all, at a certain level of artistic achievement, there’s only so many peers who can relate to the dilemmas you face on a daily basis.
“I think a lot of our discussion is just on a human level,” shrugs Wang. “Just like friends—or like brothers. We’re always in different locations, we have different schedules so we text. But if I bump into Diljit again, I will kidnap him away from his team—and I’ll escape from my team, too—to really just have a meal so we can talk when there’s not a lot of eyes on us.”
I make one last attempt at over-seriousness, invoking filmmaker Shekhar Kapur’s repeated injunctions that Bollywood cinema should look eastward to find its future—can they see something parallel happening in the realm of music?
Wang seems to see this question as an opening. “Yeah,” he says abruptly. “I want to take this opportunity to announce that, actually… I’ve never acted before in my life, but my first movie is going to be a Bollywood film.”
“Amazing,” says Dosanjh approvingly.
Wang continues. “…with Diljit. It’s called Brothers.”
“Very good. Beautiful,” says Dosanjh. Sensing a joke, I ask: “Is this…the scriptwriting session that’s happening right now?”
“It’s an action film,” continues Wang, ignoring my query as Dosanjh laughs. I try again. “Are we brainstorming it, right here?”
“No, no, no… It’s official.” Dosanjh’s shoulders are shaking in hilarity now but Wang’s poker face gives away nothing to suggest he is anything less than deadass serious. Even when the laughter fades, I’m still not 100 per cent certain whether this is a prank or a dream being spoken into existence. But one thing is clear: if they ever did make it, this is a buddy movie the world would watch.
PRODUCTION CREDITS:
Styled by Mobolaji Dawodu
Hair for Jackson Wang: Lee Han
Makeup for Jackson Wang: Lee Hayeon
Turban Stylist for Diljit Dosanjh: Gurpartap Singh Kang
Makeup for Diljit Dosanjh: Shannon Pezzetta
Produced by: Crawford & Co PRODUCTION
On-set Producer: Elli Legerski
Production Co-ordinators: Sean Gibson, Matt Quinn
Fashion Assistants: Ibrahim Omisore, Nadiya Mazurczak, Ankur Singh Nitwal (India)
Entertainment Director: Megha Mehta
Production: Shubhra Shukla