Singing in Tamil, across borders

Norwegian Tamil band 9 Grader Nord shares migration stories through music, captivating a Chennai audience with their unique folk-rock sound.

On a splendid January evening, 9 Grader Nord, a Norwegian Tamil folk-rock band, graced the Aura Studio stage, located on the rooftop of a quiet building in T Nagar, Chennai. In an intimate gathering of only 10 to 15 people, Dipha Thiruchelvam, the band’s lead singer, began the show with ‘Hymn’ in her deep voice. With her sister Mira Thiruchelvam on flute, Jakob Sisselson Hamre on percussion, and Jakob Sønnesy on bass guitar, the band took no time to envelop the audience.

Mesmerised and in awe, the audience watched as the sisters wore their diaspora on their sleeves and sang their hearts out in a city where they did not feel like a minority, but one among the crowd — only one person knew the lyrics, Dipha later confessed in an interview with The Hindu.

9 Grader Nord, which translates to 9 degrees North (the coordinates for Jaffna, Sri Lanka, where the sisters’ parents hail from), is a band started in 2017. Their parents fled Sri Lanka in the 1980s during the civil war and settled in Norway, thus becoming the inspiration behind the band’s name and motto — to express grief and assert their identity. They play an array of musical styles, including Carnatic music, baila, and Tamil folk music. Using art as a tool to express displacement and patriarchy, the band has released two albums — Jaffna in 2019 and Yalpanam in 2023.

The latter won the prestigious Spellemannprisen, an equivalent of the Norwegian Grammys, securing a win in the Open Category of the ceremony. Yalpanam is the uncolonised name of Jaffna, making their art deeply personal.

Mira Thiruchelvam | Photo Credit: Barath

Talking about their musical journey, Dipha says they are mostly self-taught musicians, and that their father’s keen interest in the bamboo flute encouraged them to make their own music. “Our father wanted to play it in Sri Lanka but because of the war, his parents didn’t support him. When he came to Norway, he wanted to teach us how to play the instrument. Lack of access meant we had to listen to CDs and transcribe the notes ourselves. That’s how we learned music.”