Bohemiaਬੋਹੀਮੀਆ

Bohemia (born Roger David, 15 October 1979) is a Pakistani-American rapper and record producer who invented Punjabi rap in the studios of Oakland, California. His 2006 album Pesa Nasha Pyar was the first full-length Punjabi rap album ever released by a major label, and the Punjabi hip hop generation that followed, from Yo Yo Honey Singh to Sidhu Moose Wala, has worked in the space he opened.

Karachi, Peshawar, California

Roger David was born in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan, into a Punjabi Christian family originally from Lahore, Punjab. He was raised and educated in Peshawar, and at the age of 13 he moved to the United States with his family. Music was in the house: his father played the harmonium, the boy learned keyboards, and he has said he was introduced to the poetry of Mirza Ghalib at an early age. In interviews he has described losing his mother as a teenager, leaving home, and living around recording studios and in cars while he learned the trade from the inside.

Vich Pardesan De and the birth of Punjabi rap

In the early 2000s he joined his cousin in Oakland, who was working at a recording studio in West Oakland, and met the hip hop producer Sha One, born Seth Agress. The two formed their own label, The Outfit Entertainment. When Sha heard Bohemia reciting something he had written in Punjabi, he asked him to rap it over a beat, and over the following months a library of lyrics became the debut album Vich Pardesan De, In the Foreign Land, an autobiographical story of a Desi youngster adapting to the streets of America. Released in 2002, it was listed among the BBC's UK top ten albums, at a time when rapping in Punjabi was barely an idea.

Pesa Nasha Pyar and Da Rap Star

The second album, Pesa Nasha Pyar, Money, Intoxication, Love, recorded with Sha One in their downtown Oakland studio and released in 2006, became the first full-length Punjabi rap album issued by a major label, Universal Music India. It featured the American star Snoop Dogg, the first international hip hop collaboration in the Desi scene, reached number two on Maxim magazine's Top 10 downloads chart and number three on the Planet M chart in India, and Bohemia signed a multi-record deal with Universal.

Da Rap Star, in 2009, was written and produced entirely by Bohemia himself. It stayed at number one on the Planet M chart for weeks and brought four nominations at the UK Asian Music Awards and the PTC Punjabi Music Awards. The street poet from Oakland was now, by common consent, the Punjabi Rap Star, the name his own website still carries.

Bollywood title tracks and Coke Studio

Bollywood came calling through Akshay Kumar. Bohemia performed the title track for the Warner Bros film Chandni Chowk to China and appeared in the film itself, then performed the title track of 8 x 10 Tasveer, and in 2011 gave a song as a present to Kumar for his first Hollywood production, Breakaway. Sony Music India signed him in May 2012, and that September he released Thousand Thoughts, which won at the PTC Punjabi Music Awards of 2013. On Coke Studio Pakistan he was the first rap artist ever featured, performing three songs in its fifth season.

What is Bohemia's place in Punjabi music today?

The albums kept coming: Skull & Bones: The Final Chapter in 2017, I Am I.C.O.N in 2022 and Rap Star Reloaded in 2024, followed by his first official EP in 2025. In 2015 he co-founded the label Kali Denali Music. His 2019 collaboration Same Beef with Sidhu Moose Wala introduced him to a new generation that had grown up on the genre he created. Industry honours kept pace with the influence: Patola, his duet with Jazzy B, won Best Duo at the PTC Punjabi Music Awards in 2016, and in 2018 the same awards gave him a special International Punjabi Icon honour. He is widely regarded as the pioneer of Desi hip hop and is called the King of Punjabi Rap, a title earned less by chart positions than by the simple fact that before him, there was no Punjabi rap to chart.

Family and base

Bohemia married Sunny David on 13 June 2017 in a small ceremony in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, where he is based. Karachi gave him his birth, Lahore his roots, Peshawar his schooling and Oakland his art; his work remains the bridge between all four.