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With a new day comes a new trending song on TikTok, and currently the song Up and Down has been garnering a lot of attention on social media. The song, which began trending in May 2023, is being used alongside anime and cartoon edits on TikTok and started trending in May 2023. Although it is trending, the song has also left people wondering who sang it and why it is gaining traction.
The song, which was released in 2018, is sung by now-77-year-old Judi Singh. The lyrics of the Up and Down song go, "Up and down and round and round. Please come down.”
The song didn't get a lot of attention when it was originally released but has become quite a hit track in 2023 when people are getting hooked to it on TikTok.
Judi Singh, who sang the TikTok famous Up and Down song is a Black-South Asian singer
Canadian jazz vocalist, Judi Singh, is a native of Edmonton and the original singer of the Up and Down song. She started singing at 17 and has done many shows over the decades at a venue called the Yardbird Suite. The now-77-year-old has also sung jingles for radio stations.
In the mid-1960s, she moved to Winnipeg and started working with CBC where she met guitarist Lenny Breau, who she married and had a daughter with. However, Judy and Lenny parted ways, following which she moved to Toronto before settling in Edmonton and getting back into the local music scene.
In 1970, a Canadian senator and musician Tommy Banks helped her record her biggest album and song A Time for Love. This song helped her shoot to fame and soon, she became a household name.
Judi Singh's daughter Emily Hughes shared that her mother is now living in Victoria
Emily Hughes, daughter of the singer of the Up and Down song spoke to City Museum in 2021 and said that her mother lives in Victoria. Emily said that her mother is a very private person and has stopped singing now.
Earlier, a researcher Poushali Mitra came across Judi's work and she started studying more about Singh's legacy.
Mitra said wondered why Edmonton forgot the Up and Down singer Judi Singh. She asked why there was nothing done to "commemorate" the "beautiful, important, and unique piece of history" that Singh's life was.
In an article, published by the Edmonton Heritage Council, Mitra said:
"This is a fascinating history that Alberta has in the 1920s when marginalized communities came together and had such harmonious marriage, such co-existence between South Asian and Black communities."
Mitra did the research with Michael Hawley, a professor of religious studies at Mount Royal University with expertise in Sikhism and Sikh settlement in Alberta. Hawley helped connect Mitra to Emily Hughes.
While speaking with Mitra, Emily Hughes said that her mother overcame a lot of challenges as a woman and then as a woman of color, a single mother, and as someone drawn to an art form that's not mainstream.
It was also mentioned in the article that Singh never had huge success, she developed a cult following and had a strong reputation as one of the better singers to come out of Western Canada at the time.
