Prateek Kuhad crafts songs that blend graceful indie folk with tender adult pop, their smooth melodicism consistently centered on affairs of the heart. He records in both Hindi and English, issuing early EPs before unveiling his debut full-length, In Tokens & Charms, in 2015. Already established as a star throughout India, the Jaipur-born artist saw his profile rise sharply on an international scale once the 2016 single “cold/mess” began circulating widely; by the arrival of the cold/mess EP in 2019, he was filling clubs across the United States. For his second album, the all-English The Way That Lovers Do, released in 2022, he embraced a more refined soft-rock palette.
Kuhad first picked up the guitar at sixteen and, while still in college, began writing his own material after encountering the work of Elliott Smith and Bob Dylan. He completed a degree in economics at New York University, then moved to Delhi to pursue music professionally. Following the 2011 self-titled three-track English EP came the Hindi release Raat Raazi in 2013, after which he delivered In Tokens & Charms in 2015; a deluxe edition appeared two years later. During this period he amassed tens of millions of streams with the intimate acoustic duet “Kho Gaye Hum Kahan,” recorded with Jasleen Royal for the film Baar Baar Dekho, achieved a global breakthrough via “cold/mess” that expanded his American audience, and received the MTV Europe Music Award for Best India Act.
In the United States he captured a five-song Audiotree Live session in 2018 consisting solely of voice and acoustic guitar, and he performed at SXSW the following year. By the time the title track of his 2019 EP appeared on Barack Obama’s year-end favorites list alongside tracks by Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen, Kuhad had already completed a sold-out North American club tour. In 2020 he became the first Indian artist to sign with Elektra Records, issuing singles such as “Kahaan Ho Tum” from the Netflix series Mismatched and a haunting rendition of Elliott Smith’s “The Biggest Lie.” Another EP, Shehron Ke Raaz, arrived in 2021 ahead of his sophomore album, The Way That Lovers Do, in 2022.
