Priya Ragu

Priya Ragu fuses her Sri Lankan Tamil heritage into cosmopolitan pop by threading R&B, hip-hop, and Caribbean and African club sounds into a single eclectic fabric. The singer and songwriter first appeared on the U.K.'s Asian Music Chart Top 40 in 2020 when her debut commercial single "Good Love 2.0" entered the ranking. That track and three later entries filled her 2021 Warner Records mixtape damnshestamil.

Although born and raised in Switzerland, Ragu—whose full surname is Ragupathylingam—began performing as a child in a family band her father assembled that also featured her brother Roshaan. The ensemble played Kollywood soundtrack material and other Tamil songs at events that ranged from informal community gatherings to weddings and benefits for Sri Lankans. She kept her focus on schooling and a day job yet felt drawn toward contemporary R&B and hip-hop, prompting her to cultivate her own musical voice. A 2017 trip to New York intended to advance her career did not unfold as hoped, but during that period she wrote and recorded material over Skype with Roshaan, who produces under the name Japhna Gold.

Her situation changed sharply a couple of years later when the independently released "Lighthouse" and "Good Love," both produced by Japhna Gold, drew strong reactions and generated offers from multiple labels. Ragu signed with Warner Records in the U.K. Following a featured turn on Oddisee's "Still Strange" and the completion of that agreement in August, "Good Love 2.0" was released as her first commercial single and reached number eight on the U.K.'s Asian Music Chart Top 40. Early the next year "Chicken Lemon Rice" climbed to number two, while "Forgot About" and "Kamali" also appeared on the chart. Before damnshestamil arrived in September, Ragu co-wrote and performed on Jungle's "Goodbye My Love." Japhna Gold produced the entire mixtape, and Ragu's parents Chandrika and Nagalingam co-wrote its Tamil-language closing track "Santhosam."