What Ed Sheeran’s “Sapphire” gets right about representing India
From Coldplay’s misguided “Hymn for the Weekend” to Ed Sheeran’s collaborative “Sapphire,” Akankshya Abismruta celebrates a new kind of cultural synthesis between the West and the East.
In 2016, the British rock band Coldplay splashed Holi colours across the streets of Mumbai, along with peacocks and sadhus and other symbols of ‘Indianness’, into their video of “Hymn for the Weekend”. The video quickly reignited the discussions about exoticism, tokenism, and Orientalism. On The Guardian, Rashmee Kumar wrote, “if cultural appropriation means that a privileged group adopts the symbols and practices of a marginalized one for profit or social capital, then yes, Coldplay’s video is committing cultural appropriation.”
Nine years later, in another music video, the English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran walks through Indian markets, gets a haircut at a local barber shop, and sings “Sapphire” with Arijit Singh while riding on his bike. Instead of creating a spectacle, he offers collaboration and connection. The camera often faces Sheeran, or shows the world from his lens as he interacts with people around him. This format creates the perception of direct engagement between the singer and his audience, without any illusion of a third gaze directing it.
The two videos present starkly different POVs and methods of interacting or appropriating outside the culture. It would be fair to wonder, in the time between “Hymn for the Weekend” and “Sapphire,” has Sheeran has marked the beginning of a new kind of cultural collaboration between the West and the East?
“Hymn for the Weekend” is presented like a short film, where Coldplay’s leading man Chris Martin steps out of his real world into the fictional one, which has India as its setting. The song with its religious connotations, calling for an angel to save Martin’s character, is set in the backdrop of a village-like neighbourhood, despite being shot on the streets of the city of dreams: Mumbai. The song’s featured singer is the American pop superstar Beyonce, who is dressed in traditional lehenga choli and jewellery. She appears to be the angel Martin is referring to. The video sets the tone for the singer to be in a state of inebriation asking to be saved, and uses levitating sadhus, children dressed as Shiva, and colours portraying the festival of Holi. These Indian elements are also culturally and historically associated with bhang, an edible preparation of cannabis. Visually, these elements add to the lyrics of being drunk and high which further move to pining for the angel and this state of bliss:
You said, ‘Drink from me, drink from me’
When I was so thirsty
Pour on a symphony
Now I just can't get enough
Put your wings on me, wings on me
When I was so heavy
Pour on a symphony
When I'm low, low, low, low
Beyonce is presented as an Indian actress playing the lead in the fictional films titled Rani and Mariya Mata (Mother Mary) within the video. Through her, Martin and Coldplay bring forth the theme of healing, which further leads to the colonial gaze of India as a place to relax, do yoga, and heal from the capitalistic world.
The religious connotations aren’t lost on the viewer, including a sea of saffron flags fluttering across the video. These are a common sight in Hindu religious places, but in the recent times they have also become signifiers of the rising violence against minorities in India by the right wing. They have become as much a sight of fear as they were of reverence, and for Coldplay to showcase them thus deserves further critical examination. Coldplay doubled down on their tributes to the ruling powers in India when, after their 2025 concert in Ahmedabad at the Narendra Modi Stadium, the band announced that it was their biggest concert, gaining appreciation by the prime minister and other BJP-leaders in the country.
Back to “Hymn for the Weekend.” Yes, there are Indians in the video, too, visually coming across as living in penury, gazing at the said film from the margins. In a video aiming to showcase India, a poor Indian man is kept at the margins, as an outsider trying to gaze in. The Hindi film actress Sonam Kapoor also makes a forgettable cameo towards the end of the video, blowing roses into the air. She is presented without being celebrated. Her presence is mere tokenism to attract an Indian audience, by showing us one of our own. It also brings forth the question: Are women of colour—Beyonce and Kapoor—interchangeable? Just because Beyonce isn’t white, can she pass as an Indian actress?
Coldplay’s gaze is a colonial one that situates India in old dilapidating forts, children dancing, looking through kaleidoscope, people dressed as Hanuman, and a montage of various Indian dance forms. It might be ‘a’ reality of India, but merging such scenes without any urban landscape or presence, caters to the idea of India only as a poverty-ridden country with its culture limited to snake charmers and elephants, as was the colonial understanding. Such representation cannot be innocent given the country’s colonial past.
Cut to summer 2025, Sheeran unveiled the song and video “Sapphire”, made in collaboration with Indian artist Arijit Singh, in anticipation for Sheeran’s album Play, released in September. In a present-day POV style—associated with Instagram reels—Sheeran travels from Hyderabad to Kolkata to Murshidabad to Shillong, offering a surprising relatability and familiarity with the locales. He engages with the local lives, as he makes his way through narrow lanes of local market places featuring scarves, earrings, and old book shops. He shakes his hand as he passes by and jams with people around him. He talks to shopkeepers, dances in restaurants, visits the set of Baahubali in Ramoji film city as a fanboy, rides auto-rickshaws, and travels in Meghalaya’s famous wooden bus Bossmit. The highlight is a surprising cameo by the Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan.
The music video also brings forth the Indians’ madness for cricket, with children wearing Rajasthan Royals jerseys and cameos by Riyan Parag and Tushar Deshpande, players from the same IPL team. The visuals of various historical places such as the Chowmohallah palace and the Charminar aren’t lost on the viewer. They appear as tourist places do in India, in their present form. Their representation doesn’t force a connection to a fictional Indian past that might be completely alienating to the urban Indian population.
If Coldplay’s India was a fiction written from outside, Sheeran’s is closer to a creative non-fiction co-authored with those inside. This may not solve the politics of representation, but it is a step toward an ethics of representation—one where music videos can become encounters, rather than appropriations.
This presence of Singh, a beloved figure of the Hindi music industry, is an important collaboration, as he contributes to the partial writing and singing of the choral section of the song in Punjabi, “Cham cham chamke sitare wargi” (They sparkle just like stars). Singh sings the Punjabi bridge of the song, but recently, Sheeran released another version where he and Singh swap places—with Sheeran on the bridge and Singh belting out the major portion of the song with Punjabi lyrics. The track is thus presented as an inclusive collaboration between two artists.
Quite like Coldplay, Sheeran’s song is also addressed to another and speaks of healing. However, it focuses on the aftermath of healing, which is a reason to celebrate. Sheeran sings:
You’re glowing
You colour and fracture the light
You can’t help but shine
And I know that
You carry the world on your back
But look at you tonight
The lights, your face, your eyes
Exploding like fireworks in the sky
Sapphire
In the video, there is a sense of joy as Sheeran and Singh ride pillion, almost like an everyday activity to do with a friend, as Singh introduced the Englishman to his hometown, Mushirabad.
This music video feels like an invitation to join Sheeran in his exploration as well as celebration, including the moment when he bursts to dancing in restaurants with fellow Indians. Here, Sheeran is not looking as India as an outsider through its history as understood by the West, but is actively jumping into the scene, and interacting with these elements across India. “Sapphire” is not shot from a pedestal and is not interested in tokenistic visuals. Despite the absence of actual colours, the video looks colourful to the eye, appealing majorly to the listeners of the artist. The presence of Khan, singing along Sheeran, is a huge cherry on the top moment where Indians see yet another significant presence of their own in the video.
India is a pluralistic country whose essence cannot be captured in one image. However, as creators, people have the agency to choose what they want to show. For every sign and symbol form meaning, and lead to a collective understanding. If Coldplay chose to return to the colonial perception of India, then Ed Sheeran chose to engage with the already popular factors in the lives of middle-class Indians. For the Coldplay video, the outrage was majorly featured in international platforms. For the Sheeran video, appreciation has poured over from various Indian platforms and content creators for showcasing an India they can relate to.
The video for “Sapphire” is significant not merely because it finally gets India ‘right’, but because it makes no claims to represent India. It shows that the pop singers from the global north need not trade in stereotypes or tokens. They can share spaces, voices, and images in the spirit of collaboration.
If Coldplay’s India was a fiction written from outside, Sheeran’s is closer to a creative non-fiction co-authored with those inside. This may not solve the politics of representation, but it is a step toward an ethics of representation—one where music videos can become encounters, rather than appropriations.
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Akankshya Abismruta is a creative writer and independent book reviewer based in Sambalpur. She has been published on various digital platforms and in Indian newspapers. You can find her on Instagram: @geekyliterati and Twitter: @geekyliterati.
