MUSIC NOTES: South Asian Music Recording category added for 2025 JUNO Awards in Vancouver

Some Surrey-area musicians will celebrate news from the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) that a South Asian Music Recording of the Year award has been added for the 2025 JUNO Awards.

“Canada has proven to be at the epicentre of South Asian music globally,” CARAS said in a webpost dated Sept. 23. “South Asian Music Recording of the Year will celebrate recordings throughout the diaspora, supporting their tremendous growth and success.”

Back in March, Punjabi-Canadian artist Karan Aujla, who once worked in Surrey as a longshoreman, took home the TikTok JUNO Fan Choice award — a bittersweet moment for organizers of the 5X Fest, a festival of South Asian music and art in Surrey and Vancouver.

“Although it was heartwarming to see (Aujla) take the stage to perform and to receive this award, we couldn’t help but notice the lack representation for South Asian artists across all of the nominated categories, so we spoke about it publicly,” on Instagram.

It sounds like CARAS listened to those concerns, adding the South Asian Music Recording of the Year category and also Songwriter of the Year (Non-Performer).

Submissions for the 2025 JUNO Awards open Oct. 15, 2024, and will be accepted at junosubmissions.ca until Nov. 7. The awards event will be held at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena on March 30, 2025.

“South Asian (specifically Punjabi) music created in Canada by Canadian artists continues to outperform all genres on a world stage,” says a 5X newsletter.

The new JUNO Awards category is “will allow more doors to open for emerging South Asian artists across Canada and it will continue to add to the development of this South Asian renaissance that we’re currently experiencing.”

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