Now in its second year, ArtHaus's South Asian Music Accelerator program will take place in Toronto later this month, helping South Asian artists, songwriters and producers build sustainable careers.
The Toronto-based music and arts incubator is the driving force behind the South Asian Music Accelerator (SAMA), and it has just announced the 10 music creators selected for the 2026 cohort. The initiative brings together artists from Vancouver, Surrey, Kitchener, Brampton, Toronto, Milton and Ottawa working across country, Punjabi music, Tamil music, R&B, soul, hip-hop, pop and electronic production.
The 10 artists selected are Calcutta Cowboy, BA1N$, Luksimi Sivaneswaralingam, dakku, GETCHNAH, MERZA, Supaveen, Seyon, Armaan and Simora.
From October 18 to 24 they will gather at various studios and ArtHaus spaces across Toronto, honing their musical, compositional and production skills.
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Now in its second year, SAMA is a national artist-development program created to support South Asian artists, songwriters and producers as they build sustainable careers in music. The program combines workshops, mentorship, collaborative songwriting and production sessions, live-performance development, business education, marketing and brand strategy, financial literacy, wellness and industry relationship-building across Canada’s music sector..
Its model connects artists with established professionals and a peer network intended to continue beyond the program itself, allowing participants to pursue their creative ambitions without separating them from the stories, sounds and identities that shape their work.
ArtHaus owner and cofounder (with Serena Ryder) Sandy Pandya is one of the brains behind SAMA. Her groundbreaking work as a music industry veteran was recognized with the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award at the 2026 Junos, and she was also recognized as a Billboard Canada Power Player in the Foundations category in 2026.
In a Billboard Canada Executive of the Week interview in February, Pandya called SAMA ''ArtHaus' signature program right now."
"For us, we really wanna make it sit on a global stage, not just North America," she said. "Wouldn't it be cool if we made Toronto what Nashville is to country music, but to South Asian music?'''
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In recent years, the Punjabi Wave has had a major commercial impact on the Canadian scene and beyond, but Pandya stressed that SAMA has a wider mandate.
''For us, it's not just about Punjabi music, it's really about uniting that industry," she said. "There’s so many different dialects. I'm Gujarati. If you're Hindi you might not listen to Punjabi music or Bengali or Kashmiri. We’re trying to just not have a conquer and divide mentality, we're going to be unified and move as a team. A win for one is a win for all of us.''
The list of participants is suitably diverse. Check out the country music of Calcutta Cowboy below:
