From living with friends on the streets, sleeping in cars and on recording studio floors in the US, this musician is now known as the godfather of desi Hip-Hop or Punjabi rap. Bohemia’s songs are celebrated so widely across the globe that his first album was nominated as one of BBC UK’s top ten albums. His third album, Da Rap Star received four nominations at the UK Asian Music Awards and PTC Punjabi music awards. It also remained at No. 1 on Planet M’s chart for several weeks.

The first rapper to be invited to feature on Coke Studio Pakistan, Bohemia made his appearance in season 5 and recorded three songs for a single episode. Soon enough Bollywood came knocking at his door asking him to vocalize the title track for the Warner Bros’ film Chandni Chowk to China.

Born in Karachi, Bohemia, aka Roger David, started writing poetry when his family moved to the US. Bohemia, however, doesn’t identify himself as a rapper, he prefers being known as a philosopher, a modern day poet or a musician.

As a child, when he was unable to build a connection with the new culture and language, he embarked upon a journey of words inspired by some of the greatest poets in South Asian history, including Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Mirza Ghalib.

He found rap when he started recognizing a lot of the messages from his own writings in the lyrics of rap artists. To the god-father of desi hip-hop, rap and poetry is the same thing; music with a more profound message to convey.

 “People like Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Mirza Ghalib are our icons and most of my poetry is inspired by them. For instance, in one of my songs, I talk about ‘going beyond the stars’, the idea of which is essentially taken from Allama Iqbal’s Sitaron Se Aagay Jahan Aur Bhi Hain.”  He adds, “But it is only those listeners who have read the work of these great men will be able to make the link and find other influences in my work.”