Gurujas Kaur Khalsa said the Grammy honor brings more responsibility to bring love and kindness on to Planet Earth. Her music is designed to leave the listener in a better, more uplifted space, she added.
Gurujas Kaur Khalsa of the White Sun group has won a second Grammy Award for her soulful chants in the album ‘Mystic Mirror’. The 9-track album contains 3 shabad (verses) from Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book of Sikhism.
White Sun, the Los Angles based new age/electronic/folk and pop music group, picked up the Grammy for Best New Age, Ambient or Chant album. Gurujas, flanked by co-creators of Mystic Mirror Adam Berry and Harijiwan Singh, accepted the award on stage at the Grammy ceremony on February 5, 2023. The trio were decked in their signature white outfits.
Gurujas said in her acceptance speech: “Thank you so much to the Academy; I’m going to cry. Thank you to everyone who helped create this album, thank you to our producers. Standing with you guys is such a privilege and honor […] with that comes more responsibility to bring love and kindness on to the planet earth.”
The 2022 release, Mystic Mirror, earned the number-one spot on iTunes and Billboard, and gained a massive following for the group’s unique music.
White Sun’s website describes Kaur’s voice and says, “her voice has been called a tonic, a truly unique presentation of uncommon skill with a penetrating, subtle vibrato and dynamic attack.”
White Sun previously won the New Age Album Grammy in 2017 for their album White Sun II.
In an interview prior to their Grammy win, Gurujas spoke to Rolling Stone India. She said, “A Grammy award is the highest possible honor in music, so being nominated feels remarkable and surreal. It is all the more meaningful because our music doesn’t really fit into any established mold, so to be recognized on the biggest night in music is beyond gratifying. We are so humbled, and so incredibly grateful.”
On the progression from their first Grammy win, she said, “When we won the Grammy in 2017, it was for White Sun II, an album sung in ancient languages. Mystic Mirror is more of an amalgamation. It opens with ‘Garden’, an experimental journey, followed by ballads and pop songs, and closes with a female-only choir. While our musical style has changed through the years, our intention has not. We always have and always will make music that is designed to leave the listener in a better, more uplifted space.”
She added that the group was working on an album in Spanish, in part to express “our appreciation for our incredible fans who speak the language.”
Gurujas Kaur Khalsa is a teacher of Kundalini Yoga as propounded by the Indian born Yogi Bhajan (1929–2004). Harijiwan is her guru.
Award photo courtesy Reuters
