Dhanda Nyoliwala

Who is Dhanda Nyoliwala?

Dhanda Nyoliwala — real name Parveen Dhanda — is an Indian rapper, singer and songwriter widely credited as the pioneer of Haryanvi drill. Working out of Australia but rapping in the blunt, rooted dialect of rural Haryana, he built a sound that simply did not exist before him: hard Haryanvi rhymes riding rattling trap and drill production. In doing so he put his home state firmly on India's hip-hop map and opened a lane that a whole wave of younger Haryanvi artists has since followed.

From Nyoli Kalan to Australia

He comes from the village of Nyoli Kalan, in the Hisar district of Haryana — the "Nyoliwala" in his name is a direct tribute to that home village. In 2018 he moved to Australia for higher studies and is now based there, in Queensland. That journey — from a Haryana village to the Australian suburbs — runs right through his music, which is proudly diasporic: hungry, homesick and defiant in equal measure.

An athlete before an artist

Before music, Dhanda was a serious athlete — a javelin thrower. As he has put it himself, life ended up handing him a mic instead of a spear. That competitive, all-or-nothing streak carried straight into his rap: the same drive that once went into the throw now goes into the verse, which is part of why his music lands with such force.

Breakthrough: from "Afgan" to "Up To U"

He launched his music career around 2020 with "Afgan", a multilingual track whose opening — announcing a journey "from India to Australia" — set out his diasporic identity from the very first line. The watershed came in 2022 with "Up To U", a drill record that turned into a genuine cultural moment: it topped the Spotify India and Shazam charts and its self-assured, self-deprecating hook spread across the subcontinent as a meme. Almost overnight, a Haryanvi drill song from an artist in Australia was everywhere.

The Haryanvi drill sound

Dhanda's signature is exactly that fusion — the cadence and slang of Haryana over dark, sub-heavy drill and trap beats. It is aggressive, catchy and unmistakably regional, and because he got there first, he is routinely described as the founder of the Haryanvi drill scene. His influence is easiest to hear in how many younger Haryanvi rappers now build on the template he set.

The Big Plans EP (2026)

In 2026 he rolled out Big Plans, an EP released as a weekly single series — "Zigane", "Dil De Baithi", "Big Plans", "Panamera" and "Gaddafi". The set shows his range, moving from hard drill cuts to softer, more melodic and romantic material like "Dil De Baithi". Each track is documented on LyricsSol as it releases.

International reach and legacy

From a base in Australia, Dhanda has taken Haryanvi rap on the road — performing for diaspora audiences across Australia, Canada, New Zealand and India, one of the widest touring footprints of any regional Indian rapper. His larger achievement, though, is cultural: he proved that a hyper-local dialect, delivered over global drill production, could travel worldwide — and in the process gave Haryanvi hip-hop a founding figure.