Talha Anjum Praises Samay Raina and Badshah, Says Indian Artists Have Always Shown Love
By Sayed Abdullah | June 2, 2026
There is a clip that has been doing the rounds on desi social media for a while now. Indian rapper Badshah, in an interview, is asked about music from across the border. He does not hesitate. He starts talking about “Gumaan,” the track by Young Stunners, and for a solid minute he just sounds like a fan. Talha Anjum, one half of that duo, brought up that moment in a recent interview — not to boast, but to make a quieter point. The Indian artists he knows, he said, have never treated him with anything but warmth. The contrast between that reality and what plays out on television screens during periods of political tension is something he still cannot quite get used to.
Talha recalled the Badshah moment with genuine appreciation. “He was talking about ‘Gumaan’ during an interview, and what he said resonated with a lot of people,” he said. But he did not stop there. He also praised comedian Samay Raina and several other Indian creators for their consistent kindness. “Samay Raina is the same way. All these people are extremely warm and loving,” he added. This was not a calculated diplomatic statement. It was the reflection of a young artist who has been in enough rooms with his Indian counterparts to know that the hostility he sees on news channels does not match the respect he receives in person.
The Full Story
Talha Anjum's remarks came during a longer conversation about music, borders, and the strange duality of being a Pakistani artist with a massive Indian fanbase. He did not sugarcoat the political context — he acknowledged it directly. “That's why, whenever a war-like atmosphere is created and we watch the media, I often wonder, ‘Who are these people sitting on television?' Because the people I know are nothing like that,” he said. The line is going to get quoted a lot, yaar. It cuts through the noise that surrounds every India-Pakistan exchange and lands on something disarmingly simple: the people he meets are not the people the news tells him to expect.
Talha is not naive. He has lived through the cycles of tension that have repeatedly frozen cultural exchange between the two countries. He knows that collaborations are blocked, that visas are denied, that the political machinery on both sides thrives on division. But he also knows what happened when Badshah praised “Gumaan” — the clip went viral, fans on both sides celebrated, and for a brief moment, the border felt thinner than it usually does. That matters to him. It matters to anyone who believes that art can do things that diplomacy cannot.
Born in Karachi, Talha Anjum is one of the defining voices of modern Urdu hip-hop. As one half of Young Stunners, alongside Talhah Yunus, he helped drag Pakistani rap from the underground into the mainstream. Tracks like “Afsanay,” “Gumaan,” “Downers at Dusk,” and “Baller” have accumulated millions of streams, and the duo's fanbase extends deep into India, the Gulf, and the diaspora in the West. Talha's solo work has only cemented that reputation. He is, by any measure, one of Pakistan's most streamed and influential musicians — and he is still in his twenties.
The Indian connection is not incidental to his success. A significant portion of Young Stunners' audience lives in India, consumes their music on the same platforms, and attends the same virtual spaces where fan communities gather. Talha knows this. His remarks about Samay Raina and Badshah were not just about individual kindness — they were about acknowledging a relationship that already exists, regardless of whether the governments want to formalise it.
Why This Moment Matters
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that sets in when you watch artists having to navigate the politics that surrounds them. Talha's comments matter because they refuse to participate in the performance of hostility. He could have been combative. He could have made a statement about Indian artists not supporting Pakistani musicians enough, or about the double standards of the Indian music industry. He did none of that. He pointed instead to the reality he has experienced — respect, warmth, appreciation — and let the contrast with the media narrative speak for itself.
This is not the first time a Pakistani artist has spoken in these terms, but it lands differently coming from Talha. He is not a diplomat. He is not a politician. He is a rapper who built his career on lyrics that are unflinching about his own life — Karachi's streets, the grind of making music, the ambition to be heard beyond his city. When he says that Indian artists have always shown him love, it carries the weight of someone who is actually in the rooms where those interactions happen. He is not speculating. He is reporting.
And then there is the Badshah clip itself. For those who have not seen it, it is worth finding. Badshah, one of India's biggest rappers, talking about “Gumaan” with the enthusiasm of a genuine fan — praising the production, the lyrics, the vibe. That clip went viral for a reason. It was not manufactured. It was not a promotional exchange. It was one artist recognising good work from another, without caring about the flag on the album cover. Talha's acknowledgment of that moment, months later, closes the loop. It says: we saw it, we appreciated it, and we feel the same way.
The Pakistani Connection
I grew up in Karachi, not far from where Talha Anjum started writing his first bars. The city's hip-hop scene was once a small, tight-knit community — kids in Lyari, in Gulshan, in Defence, trading verses on their phones, uploading tracks to YouTube, hoping someone would listen. That scene is now a movement. Young Stunners played a huge role in that transformation, and their music has become the soundtrack for a generation of Pakistani kids who feel more connected to global culture than any previous one.
What Talha said about Indian artists resonates here because it mirrors what Pakistani fans already know. The love is real. You see it in the comments under every Young Stunners video, in the fan edits, in the crossover memes that unite desi hip-hop fans across the border. A ticket to a Young Stunners concert in Karachi might cost Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 5,000 — not cheap for a student, but within reach for many. The Indian fans who would pay far more to see them live cannot do so, because visas do not come through and tours do not happen. That frustration is real. And Talha's words, in their quiet way, acknowledge it without being consumed by it.
The larger point he was making — that the people on television are not the people he knows — is one that applies far beyond the music industry. It applies to trade, to diplomacy, to the ordinary curiosity that Pakistanis and Indians have about each other's lives. The governments may not be talking, but the artists are. The fans are. The listeners who stream “Gumaan” in Mumbai and Delhi and Bangalore are. That is not a substitute for peace, but it is not nothing either. It is a reminder that the border is a political fact, not a cultural one.
What do you make of Talha's comments — and have you had similar experiences where the people you meet across the border are nothing like what the news shows? Share your thoughts.
Sayed Abdullah is the founder and editor of Prime Pakistan. Based in Karachi, he writes about music, culture, and the stories that connect Pakistan to the world. Read more.
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Sources
- Talha Anjum's recent interview — Comments on Badshah, Samay Raina, and Indian artists.
- Badshah's earlier interview — Viral moment praising Young Stunners' "Gumaan."
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