The Indo-Canadian Punjabi rapper AP Dhillon caused a stir back home in India by smashing an ESP LTD Kirk Hammett V guitar at the end of his set at Coachella last weekend. In contrast to the Western tradition of smashing guitars as a gesture of rock 'n' roll rebellion, Indian culture shows a strong reverence for musical instruments, a sentiment that clearly persists based on the response to Dhillon's performance. When Dhillon posted footage of the guitar smash to Instagram, commenters had an intensely negative response, with many rejecting the destruction of an instrument as "cringe" and disrespectful to the craft of music. As The Hindustan Times reports, Dhillon doubled down in a subsequent post, inspiring further critique.
Dhillon performed in front of a screen reading "Justice For Sidhu Moosewala," referring to the popular Punjabi rapper who was killed by unidentified assailants in 2022. In the second Instagram post, captioned "The media is controlled and I’m out of control," he included photos of that background and of him in the process of smashing the guitar. The final slide of the post was a video of Kurt Cobain smashing a guitar.
One commenter replied, "But Sidhu Moosewala would have also respected the musical instruments, being an artist, if he was here to see this. So before making loose statements like ‘media is controlled’, you better learn some good manners and values, buddy. God bless." Another chimed in, "You’re justifying wrong things brother. Are you even remembering your culture of how we treat musical instruments? That guitar was the one you held it for your show and it produced the vibration you wanted. After that destroying it was the coolest thing? This is an act of a fool. A true musician loves his instruments more than music. Show some respect, accept it and apologise to yourself, not to us. All we can see is your graph going down. If music gave you the fame, at least learn to respect it." Still another posted, "What a cringe caption lol."
Dhillon dropped off Coachella's second weekend, citing schedule conflicts. A rep for Dhillon says the cancellation occurred before the hubbub over his guitar smashing and was not a reaction to the controversy.
Coincidentally, Flea posted this on X hours after Dhillon's set:
feel like such an idiot for smashing my bass to pieces on stage back in the day, pathetic.
— Flea (@flea333) April 15, 2024
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