As a child, Kaur heard Harbhajan Singh Yogi when her parents attended his classes after becoming Sikhs. The family moved to California when Kaur was two, living in Long Beach and Sacramento. When Kaur was six, the family went to India where her mother studied kirtan. Kaur lived on a ranch near Bolinas, California as an adolescent, playing kirtan with her mother in Sikh temples and attending Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley. While at Tam High, she played violin in the school orchestra and began songwriting. Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead coached her and her classmates before they performed her song Saving the Earth at an Earth Day concert in San Francisco.