SBS Spice

It’s not every day you hear qawwalis in Melbourne’s Fed Square. The centuries-old form of Sufi devotional music has long offered healing through rhythm, repetition and poetry. In Pakistan, the tradition has flourished, finding new life across generations. At Blockbuster, that sound arrives in the heart of the city. Zohaib Ali, one half of the duo Zain Zohaib, joins Dilpreet Kaur Taggar to reflect...

Punjab is about to pulse through the heart of Melbourne, with Blockbuster — a one-day explosion of Pakistani music, art and identity at Fed Square. Dilpreet Kaur Taggar sits down with three music heavyweights performing in Australia for the very first time: Annural Khalid, Spotify Pakistan’s most-streamed woman artist of 2024; Xulfi, the iconic producer behind Coke Studio’s recent evolution; and S...

As Sydney’s nights cool down, VIVID’s Fire Kitchen turns up the heat. SBS Spice’s Suhayla Sharif and Dilpreet Kaur Taggar followed the scent of the subcontinent to Darling Harbour, where South Asian-inspired vendors — Pocket Rocketz, Ogni, and Spice Zen — brought the fire, quite literally. From reimagined Aussie snacks to the roots of the humble masala dabba, hear how these makers are keeping flav...

Zaeden was a DJ. Then he got personal. And now, he’s making his Australian debut at Vivid Sydney. He’s played Tomorrowland, opened for global heavyweights like Justin Bieber, Post Malone, and Maroon 5, and racked up over 500 million streams. But he’s since shifted toward something more grounded: Hindi pop that’s personal, polished, and proudly independent. He joins Dilpreet to talk about putting I...

Onella Muralidharan was seven when she told her parents she no longer wanted to hide her Vitiligo—the skin condition that removes pigment from different areas of the body. Unwavered by off-key comments and advice, Onella is now on runways and representing major brands, such as Mecca, Bonds and Lululemon, to counter outdated and ill-informed beauty standards. The Sri Lankan-Australian model, conten...

Māori-Indian R&B artist PANIA is done waiting for permission. Raised in West Melbourne on a steady diet of Missy Elliott, Tupac and early-2000s R&B, she’s part of a new wave reshaping what Australian music sounds and looks like. As she prepares to perform at VIVID 2025, PANIA joins Suhayla Sharif on SBS Spice to talk about chasing a career no one around her imagined — and why her songs don’t need...

SAHXL began making music in his Western Sydney bedroom at just 12 — and within a year, he’d caught the ear of Grammy-winning producer Khaled Rohaim. Now 21, the Hip-Hop and R&B artist is signed to legendary label Def Jam Recordings and rising fast, bringing the stories of his community to the world. Ahead of his Sydney Opera House debut for VIVID 2025, he joins Suhayla Sharif to talk lived experie...

In his show, The Mind Field, Arj Barker turns grief and neuroscience into stand-up that asks the big questions — about existence, consciousness, and what we’ll probably never figure out. He joins SBS Spice host Dilpreet Kaur Taggar to talk about how the sudden loss of a friend pushed those questions to the surface, and why some jokes are best retired to a peaceful farm. Also on the table: why AI c...

We’re having sex, getting married, getting divorced — so why are we still not talking about it? Author Saman Shad joins Suhayla Sharif to talk about what happens when we finally do. Her new novel The Sex Lives of Married Women lays bare the weight of being good daughters, model migrants, and women taught to want less. From 90s rom-com nostalgia to the strength of female friendships, Shad unpacks h...

Before taking to the stage, Yashith Fernando fell in love with musical theatre the same way most South Asians have— Bollywood. Now having found his rhythm, the Sri Lankan-Australian actor has performed for audiences Shakespeare to Smooth Criminal to the beat of his own tune. His latest role in MJ the Musical has him wielding a camera as Alejandro, but Suhayla Sharif turns the lens on Yashith in th...

What do we call progress — and what do we lose when we pursue it blindly? In this episode of SBS Spice, Dilpreet Kaur Taggar speaks to the team behind The Wrong Gods — the new play by Counting and Cracking writer S. Shakthidharan, now premiering at Sydney’s Belvoir St Theatre. Set in a rural Indian valley, The Wrong Gods is an intimate drama about a mother and daughter divided by belief, and a com...

Bangalore-born comic Jo Gowda joins SBS Spice to talk about her new show Export Quality at the Sydney Comedy Festival — a sharp, funny take on the migrant experience in Australia. From navigating Brisbane’s eerie quiet to decoding how Aussies talk (and eat), Jo unpacks the layered reality of life as an outsider looking in. Offstage, she’s also raising a full-blown Aussie kid who loves Vegemite — a...

Rattan Virk is contesting the seat of Greenway for the Liberal Party ahead of the 2025 Australian federal election, campaigning on cost of living relief, small business support, and strengthening trade ties with India as key priorities. She speaks with Dilpreet Kaur Taggar about what she believes matters most to Western Sydney voters. Please note: This conversation was recorded before recent devel...

Labor MP Cassandra Fernando has represented the seat of Holt in Victoria since 2022. As Labor seeks a second term in government, she makes the case for her party’s record and its promises to voters. In this episode of SBS Spice, she speaks to Suhayla Sharif about Labor’s plans to tackle the cost of living crisis, HECS debt, and the national housing shortage. Fernando, who migrated from Sri Lanka a...

Singapore-based comedian Kumar has been pushing the boundaries of Asia's entertainment landscape for over three decades. Performing as a drag queen and comedic entertainer, his unfiltered yet effervescent humour has never bowed down to binaries and boxes. Just before taking to the stage for Sydney Comedy Festival, he sat down with Suhayla Sharif to explore how old school humour is shaping the futu...

Stand-up comedy royalty Prashasti Singh makes her Australian debut with Divine Feminine — a show delivered entirely in Hindi (with a little Hinglish). Ahead of her performance at the Sydney Comedy Festival, she joins Dilpreet Kaur Taggar on SBS Spice to open up about language, longing, and the layered experience of connecting with desis abroad. Together, they dive into age anxiety, algorithm-induc...

Senator Fatima Payman quit Labor over Palestine. Now she’s leading her own party. In this episode of SBS Spice, she tells Suhayla Sharif why she walked, what it cost her, and how it led to the formation of Australia’s Voice. From HECS relief and supermarket price gouging to Gaza and foreign aid, she outlines her party’s vision—and what she believes young Australians should be pushing for at the ba...

Writer and digital creator Ruchi Page joins SBS Spice on the long, messy journey of making peace with your body. Growing up as a brown girl in a predominantly white town, Ruchi learned early on how body image is shaped not just by mirrors, but by the people we love, the cultures we come from, and the spaces we’re told we don’t belong in. In this conversation with Dilpreet Kaur Taggar, we talk abou...

What makes a joke travel? Urooj Ashfaq and Anirban Dasgupta, two of India’s most distinctive comedy voices, are touring Australia and figuring that out in real time. From navigating diaspora nerves to resisting the pressure to “perform Indian-ness,” they talk about what lands, what doesn’t, and how the rules of the stage shift depending on where you are—and where you’re from. In the lead-up to the...

Not your aunty’s idea of stand-up. Daizy Maan and Niv Prakasam are carving out space on Australia’s biggest comedy stages with Brown Women Comedy—one sharp, subversive set at a time. They join Suhayla Sharif to chat about the politics of palatability, turning silence into laughter, and what happens when you take your story and make it the punchline (on your own terms).

A 13-year-old boy, a murder, and the internet—where does the blame begin? Suhayla Sharif and Dilpreet Kaur Taggar break down Adolescence, Netflix’s chilling dive into the manosphere, incel culture, and the online rabbit holes shaping young men. When ideology turns dangerous, who’s really in control?

Shamita Sivabalan has always been a force in the spotlight—dancer, choreographer, actor. In TV series 'Good Cop/Bad Cop', they break away from typical roles, playing Sarika Ray, a Marine-turned-cop. Shamita talks with SBS Spice’s Suhayla Sharif about casting challenges in Australia, addressing labels like “too brown” and “too queer,” and what it means for South Asian Australian visibility. Listen...

At just 13, Poorna Malavath became the youngest woman to summit Mount Everest in 2014. But that was only the beginning. Since then, she has conquered the highest peaks across all seven continents. Now, she’s turning her focus closer to home—hoping to inspire young girls in India to pursue sports climbing. Poorna speaks to Suhayla Sharif about finding new peaks by staying grounded. Listen now, only...

The South Asian Australian community is rapidly growing as more migrants from the region choose to call Australia home. A second generation of South Asian immigrants, the children of at least one foreign-born parent, are tasked with finding belonging in social circles that often question the validity of their Australian or South Asian identities. Spice girls Saesha Senanayake and Suhayla Sharif ex...

Dabba Cartel is the Indian Netflix series plating up a fresh take on crime drama. When a Mumbai-based food delivery service unexpectedly turns into a drug cartel, five women are caught in a tangled web of cooking, crime and chaos. Magnifying the hustle and hardships of women in India's working class, Dilpreet Kaur Taggar lifts the lid on the series with director Hitesh Bhatia and co-creator Shiban...