LA-based songstress India Shawn champions self-love and divine femininity within her soulfully sultry, psychedelia-infused R&B. With a smooth voice that connects to listeners immediately, lyrics that resonate with your heart, and fearless experimentation with R&B elements, India’s music has spiritual and emotional components to it.
Breaking into the business during 2010, she penned songs for everyone from Chris Brown and Diddy-Dirty Money to El Debarge, Keri Hilson, and Monica as part of the writing collective Full Circle.
Following her 2012 debut Origin, she made waves and turned heads as an artist with “I’m Alive,” which Solange Knowles touted on the 2013 Saint Heron compilation. Opening for Raury and Ryan Leslie, she lent her voice to Ludacris’ chart-topping Ludaversal, and served up the Outer Limits EP during 2015.
In 2019, Kanye West sought her out to perform as part of the historic Sunday Service at Coachella 2019. Anderson .Paak also invited her on the road to finish up the year as she began recording her next chapter. Just last year, the R&B singer teamed up with Anderson again for “Movin’ On” and also released her 6LACK collaboration “Not Too Deep” and was featured on NPR Music: Tiny Desk Concert Series performing with The Free Nationals, Anderson .Paak, and Chronixx.
(Feb. 25, 2020 – Source: Getty Images North America)
Safe to say, India Shawn has garnered praise from tastemakers all around, including none other than GRAMMY nominee Harry Styles. When hopping on a Zoom call to discuss her latest single “Too Sweet” on Friday (March 12), the singer/songwriter mentioned that she was going through one of her busiest weeks yet, as she is apart of Styles’ highly-anticipated GRAMMY performance that will be opening the show later tonight (March 14) at 8PM ET/5PM PT on CBS.
Hinting that Styles’ performance has been pre-taped, Shawn opened up about how she found out she was sharing the stage with Harry, what it was like to film a performance for something as big as The Grammys, and why the entire process was a “dream come true” for her.
“I found out [I was performing with Harry] about a month ago. I did Jingle Ball with Harry back in December and they just reached out again and asked if I would join for the Grammys. And I’m like, ‘hell yeah,'” she recalls to Celeb Secrets.
“I did not know until the day of the live stream that we would be opening [the show], so that was a crazy surprise. And even though there wasn’t a big audience, we were performing for each other. The artists get to watch each other and Billie Eilish was standing right next to me watching us perform. And then we got to watch her perform along with everyone else and it was just a crazy, crazy experience.”
Shawn also couldn’t stop gushing over Styles, as she describes him as one of her “favorite” people to work with.
“Harry is such a physically beautiful person, but his insides match,” she says. “He is just such a good person and he made it so fun and so easy. And it’s just a dream come true.”
Don’t forget to catch India with Harry Styles during the 63rd Annual GRAMMY Awards TONIGHT, March 14th @ 8PM ET/5PM PT on CBS and stay tuned for our full interview with India in the coming weeks.
Listen to India’s newest single “Too Sweet” below.
