For Grammy-nominated artiste Raja Kumari, India has always held a special place in her heart. In the Capital on Friday for Dhaagon Ki Sargam, a National Handloom Day event by the Ministry of Textiles and the FDCI, the rapper-singer opened up about her roots, craft and her love for local street food.

Dressed in an embroidered silk ensemble with schoolgirl braids and metallic charms, she shared, “You can put a modernist twist on an Indian aesthetic, and it still feels rooted.” For Kumari, handloom isn’t just for sarees. “Seeing it styled with jeans today shows how versatile it is. It cements how incredible our textile history has always been, and I’m so happy to see this renaissance,” she said.

Born in California to a Telugu family, Kumari’s decision to build her career in India was set in motion early on. “My father left India in the ’70s for the US. I’m a result of the American dream, but my dream was always to come back,” she reflected, citing the film Swades (2004) as a turning point. “Living in America, I was upcycling my mother’s old sarees to recreate India,” she said.

The 40-year-old also shared that navigating the two worlds shaped both her perspective and music. “In America, they’d say, ‘You’re not American, you’re Indian’, while in India they say I’m not Indian enough. But the rest of the world only sees an Indian girl. It’s about standing in that power.”

With a decade in the industry behind her, her advice to rising musicians is simple, stop copying the West: “We tend to ‘copy-paste’ whatever works once, but young artists need to tell genuine stories. The West is actually looking to the East to find purpose.”