IN CONVERSATION WITH
DJ Shadow
Tell us about your
recent collaboration
for “Slowly Slowly”
During my US tour last year, I
was listening to urban music in
the west and caught a whiff of the
fresh wave of music which the
Indian music industry hadn’t yet
discovered and I wanted to grab
that opportunity. I am a staunch
believer in collaborations so
I quickly reached out to Guru
Randhawa and he worked on a
composition that was exactly
on the lines of this fresh sound,
which then I further produced.
We really wanted to make this a
big one so we brainstormed and
decided to further send it across
to an international artist. We sent
it to Pitbull’s management. When
Pitbull heard the song, he couldn’t
help but love it instantly and him
being a fan of India and its culture,
he decided to drop his own verse on
it. That’s when the grain of thought
started seeing the light of day
which would eventually grow into
a track that has now crossed over
a 110 Million views on Youtube.
When did you first get into
this profession? What was
the sound that drew you in?
I started out working in the Events
industry and as a teenager when
I was pondering about what to
do with my life, my passion for
music and exposure to DJ sets at
events got me really interested in
exploring it more and that’s when
I started experimenting as a DJ.
Growing up in Dubai, I’ve been
exposed to the music of the east
and the west and always wanted
to fuse the two. A fusion of Indian
music and the sounds from the
west would be the ideal approach
to give it an international feel,
this is exactly what drew me
in to music and prompted me
to create collaborations with
artists from across the globe.
Tell us about your tech set up
and the gear that you swear by
The technology that we use for
DJing has really advanced over
the last couple of years and I
think I’m really fortunate to be a
part of this era where technology
has really played a key role in
the kind of music we create
today. Pioneer is the leading
industry brand and I swear by
its equipment for all my gigs.
What's your take and how do
you leverage digital space
to put out your work?
When I started DJing, it all started
with wanting to create a blend of
Bollywood and Electronic music
which wasn’t being done at that
time and so I started doing it
myself. Back then, social media
wasn’t as big as it is today so we
used to share music over MSN
messenger and Orkut. Today, we
have so many more options in
the digital space to put out music.
I personally upload a lot of my
music on my Youtube channel
and I find that instagram is the
best platform to directly engage
with your audience, which is
where I promote all of my music.
What are your upcoming
projects?
I think this year, you can expect
a lot more original music, I
believe collaborations are the
way forward to uniting the world
through music as well as taking
Indian music to a global audience,
so that’s something you can
definitely expect. I have some
super exciting projects coming
up this year but unfortunately
I cannot name them yet.
The
Score Magazine
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