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Dhanda Nyoliwala
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About Dhanda Nyoliwala
Dhanda Nyoliwala, born Parveen Dhanda on 21 May 1997, is a Haryanvi rapper and singer who turned a regional dialect into a streaming powerhouse. Widely credited as the face of "Haryanvi Drill" — the hard, 808-driven strain of Haryanvi rap he helped define — he commands roughly nine million monthly Spotify listeners, and his breakout anthem "Russian Bandana" has crossed …
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Who is Dhanda Nyoliwala?
Dhanda Nyoliwala, born Parveen Dhanda on 21 May 1997, is a Haryanvi rapper and singer who turned a regional dialect into a streaming powerhouse. Widely credited as the face of "Haryanvi Drill" — the hard, 808-driven strain of Haryanvi rap he helped define — he commands roughly nine million monthly Spotify listeners, and his breakout anthem "Russian Bandana" has crossed 220 million streams on Spotify alone, extraordinary numbers for music in a dialect the mainstream industry long ignored.
Early life: from javelin to bars
He grew up in Nyoli Kala village in Haryana's Hisar district, the source of his stage name. Before music he was a national-level javelin thrower, until a spinal injury suffered between 2014 and 2016 ended his athletics career and left him bedridden for a long stretch. That forced stillness redirected him toward writing, and in 2018 he moved to Australia, where distance from home sharpened rather than diluted his Haryanvi identity.
AFGAN and the birth of Haryanvi Drill
Dhanda emerged at the turn of the 2020s with "Afgan", a breakthrough that found a wide Haryanvi audience and announced a new sound: West Coast and drill influences under an unapologetically rural Haryanvi flow. The fusion came to be known as Haryanvi Drill, and it cracked open a lane that a generation of regional rappers — including peers like Rawme Hooda — have since poured through.
Up To U: the viral turn
"Up To U" (2022) turned him from a scene name into a viral phenomenon. Supercharged by Instagram Reels, the track passed 75 million views and climbed to the top of both Spotify's and Shazam's India charts — early proof that Haryanvi-language rap could compete with Punjabi and Hindi pop on national platforms, not just in regional playlists.
Russian Bandana and streaming dominance
His 2024 single "Russian Bandana", released with the album-length project DNW Vol. 1, became the biggest Haryanvi rap song of its era — 223 million-plus Spotify streams and counting. The catalogue around it kept scaling: "Tension" (72M+), "BLACK RIDE" (63M+) and "Not Guilty" (56M+) all became multi-tens-of-millions streamers, giving Dhanda a depth of hits few regional artists anywhere in India can match.
Recent work
His momentum has carried straight into 2026 with releases including "Not Guilty", Kohram and the cross-regional collaboration Boom Shaka with Delhi rap veteran KR$NA — a meeting of Hindi rap's most technical lyricist and Haryanvi rap's biggest streamer that doubled as a statement of how far the scene has come. He has also collaborated with Raftaar ("Chora Baba Ka") and Yogi Aulakh ("Jat Clan"), and became one of the first Haryanvi rappers to tour Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Style
Dhanda's sound sits where Haryanvi folk bluntness meets global trap and drill: heavy 808s, sparse menace, and a percussive dialect flow that never code-switches for outsiders. The writing is raw, braggadocious and street-rooted, but its core appeal is authenticity — village identity carried, unsoftened, onto international-scale production.
Legacy
Alongside a handful of peers, Dhanda Nyoliwala took Haryanvi rap from a YouTube curiosity to one of Indian hip-hop's fastest-growing movements, and he remains its commercial high-water mark. For millions of listeners across India and the diaspora, his rise — from a hospital bed in Hisar to nine-figure streams from Australia — is the Haryanvi hip-hop story in miniature.
