Can you describe your role and contribution to the series ? What aspects of your musical journey are highlighted ?
So , I love collaborating with Traditional musicians and I have done that again and again in the past , collaborated with the tribal musicians from Andhra Pradesh , Odisa , Karnataka , Tamil Nadu and also collaborated with musicians from Bengal in the past . This was an amazing opportunity to collaborate with true traditional Sufi musicians i . e Warsi Brothers . My role was basically to just bridge the gap between traditional and contemporary . I bought the contemporary elements , i bought in a little bit too much of the contemporary element which I may can say so where I bought in too much of electronica into the song and also I bought in my good friend Abby V who is a brilliant Canadian Indian singer who is master at Karnataka classical vocals , probably having the talent and skill of Karnatik vocalist who is twice his age and also along with being a fantastic Karnatik classical singer , he is also a great soul and RnB singer . So that ’ s the kind of versatility that he has , so he bought in his influences of his Karnatik classical music , hindustani classical music and sole RnB into the vocals of this particular song and I bought in the whole electronica element and I used all of these elements together in hopefully a song that people will connect with and it will cross the generation boundaries and hopefully it will be loved by as many people as possible
What expectations do you have regarding the impact of EQUALS on the appreciation of folk music in India and globally ?
As I mentioned that what Equals is doing is that they are adding a fusion element into a folk music where one plus one is not two but it ’ s bigger that two . So it ’ s cinegestic fusion between the old and the new where the fusion of both these elements is greater than the some of its parts . So it ’ s almost like if I have to nievely explain it that lets say in our case , it ’ s a contemporary musician like me collaborating with Sufi musician . So its not just the contemporary music audiences and Sufi music audiences that will listen to it but many more audiences will like it just because if the way these two genres have come together through this collaboration . But at the same time the essence of the song is the Warsi Brothers . Warsi Brothers from the beginning to end it ’ s their essence it ’ s largely their composition and it ’ s largely their ideas , their philosophies that are there in the song . So if the song gets appreciation , then the appreciation is largely and almost entirely goes to the Warsi Brothers and hopefully that will entirely lift their art form and it will lift public consciousness about sufu music in general and the Warsi Brothers beautiful art form of music
From your perspective , why is it important to bring diverse folk genres like Thumri , Baul , Qawwali , etc ., to a global audience through platforms like JioCinema ?
So especially in India , all consumption of music is around the mainstream . Because of the way we have structured our social media , our streaming platforms , our consumption pattern in terms of music , everything is about what reached people rather then people looking out for something that is new . So for example , common person only listens to music that reaches that person through advertisement , through radio or through YouTube whatever is recommended to the person , that is what the person listens too . Gone are the days where people actually look out for the music or wait for artist to create new music , all of that doesn ’ t exist any more . So in this kind of a scenario it is very difficult for people to access unique music , unique music styles and traditional music styles because all of them are set to be not mainstream and that ’ s the kind of music which is not promoted and that ’ s the kind of music that social media doesn ’ t promote at the people on regular basis , so that is the reason why it is important for platforms like Jio Cinema to encourage diverse musical forms like all the traditional forms of India . Simply because I have seen in my personal experience that when people are actually exposed to this form of music they actually love it and they actually listen to them on repeat and they share it with their friends . But the problem is that such music is not reaching to them because of the way the platforms are built and the algorithm is built and the way recommendations on various sites and platforms are built . So I will say that Jio has done a great service to the musical art form simply by showcasing equals and ensuring that equals reaches the large audience across india and therefore get more and more people to get appreciate our own traditions and our own routes and our own forms .
The Score Magazine
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