Rolling Loud India is back, and Karan Aujla is making history.
The blockbuster hip-hop festival is returning to Mumbai on Dec. 12-13 for its second-ever edition in India, and the Punjabi-Canadian rapper is returning as a headliner. Aujla is the first act to ever headline Rolling Loud India twice, and he is set to perform on the closing night (Dec. 13), as he did during the festival's inaugural edition in India in 2025.
Last year, Aujla's set created a major moment when he brought out Canadian rapper and XO Records star NAV to perform their remix of his hit "Daytona," which originally appeared as a solo track on Aujla's record-setting album P-Pop Culture, which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart and broke the record for the highest streaming debut by any Punjabi-language album in Canadian history. His most recent EP Aujla Szn 1 was a major hit, notching a No. 7 debut on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart and landing all five of its tracks within the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 top 40 at the beginning of this month.
"One thing that really stood out to us in India was how open the fans were to everything," says Matt Zingler, co-founder and CEO of Rolling Loud. "If the music connects, they show up for it. That’s influenced how we’ve approached this year’s lineup – bringing international and Indian artists together across both days and making it feel like one festival, not two different worlds."
Aujla is one of four genre-diverse headliners leading the diverse bill, joined by superstar hip-hop producer Metro Boomin, British grime and hip-hop icon Skepta and Nigerian music superstar Burna Boy, all of whom are making their live debut in India. Burna Boy has a close connection to the Punjabi music scene through the late star Sidhu Moose Wala, who he most recently supported by sending a message at his inaugural hologram tour concert at Toronto's Scotiabank Arena on Oct. 9. Burna Boy collaborated with Moose Wala on the 2023 track "Mera Na" and has paid tribute to him onstage on numerous occasions, including during his own headline concerts in Toronto in Vancouver.
Tamil-Canadian and Toronto-based rapper Navz-47 joins Aujla as the only fellow Canadian on the list, earning a spot on one of the world's biggest hip-hop stages as she continues to work on her forthcoming debut album Fresh Off the Boat. She is one of five Canadian alumni who have played the Indian festival thus far, following NAV, AR Paisley and Gurinder Gill last year.
"Walk into a cypher in Delhi or a small gig in Mumbai and you will see who people actually turn up for. And it is rarely the same list of artists you’d see on social media," says Rahul Ganjoo, CEO of District, the Indian ticketing platform and partner of Rolling Loud India 2026. "Hip-hop in India has always moved through cyphers, small shows, and people putting each other on, and that’s where we looked when we built this year’s bill. At the first edition, the crowd didn't thin out between the international sets and the Indian ones, and that told us the audience was already a step ahead of the industry. This line up is built on what we saw."
See the full Rolling Loud India 2026 lineup below.
Rolling Loud India 2026 lineupRolling Loud
