“Once you release art into the world, it's no longer yours to define what it is” “Once you release art into the world, it's no longer yours to define what it is”

We're currently in Katwijk, in the residence of your relatives. Could you please elaborate on your connection to this coastal village?
My mom is Dutch. I spent a lot of time here in my grandparents’ house. It holds a lot of memories, and the Netherlands itself is a place very close to my heart. I try to be here as much as possible to spend time with my mom, who's in a facility just down the road.

Your songs are doing quite well in South Africa and India. Is there a specific reason why you haven’t promoted your music in the Netherlands?
To be honest, it's really my fault for not reaching out. I’ve found that my three most recent songs play every day on the radio in South Africa, three to five times a day. So, I've kind of doubled down on my efforts once my music was doing well outside of India. I know streaming does well in Western Europe and the US, but for an outreach like that, I haven’t done the hard work required to carve that space. Perhaps because I just haven't been here as much as I have in those other places. But I would love for my music to be played more here.

You released your first music in 2020. Why then?
I started acting from an early age, but music was always kind of a distant mystery. Before the COVID pandemic, I was connected, through some of my film connections, to Universal Music. I completed a full-length album, but because of the pandemic the album was never released and the licensing deal with Universal broke off. During the pandemic, I realized I had nothing but time and if I didn't get my music out there then, I never would. So, I began releasing my music independently.

Your first song ‘Still On My Mind’ is big on YouTube. I saw a lot of comments underneath that were COVID-related. Is this song about COVID?
It's not about COVID, not at all. Well, that's the beautiful thing about music for me. Once you release art into the world, it's no longer yours to define what it is. It becomes the creative property of every person who experiences it. When I listen to some of my favourite songs from the '80s, I don't even know what they're talking about, but there's this emotion in me because of the experiences I was going through. That's the meaning of the song for me. So anytime there's a comment on my music, I'm incredibly thankful that someone has allowed the words and melody to create something in their heart and mind. That’s what makes music for me different from the film. With film, you tell people what to think. Whereas with music, it's kind of wide open.

Would you say music has more power than film?
I wouldn't say either one has more or less power, but I would say that music allows you to experience it more as yourself rather than as a spectator. You become more involved in music. Maybe because it’s shorter, so the melodies stick in your mind. There isn't really a full film that sticks like that in my mind.  

Has your work in films in India led to an increase in music plays?
No. So, in India, English music isn’t the standard, and music and film are inextricably linked there. I’ll give you an example: if someone watches a film and hears a song, they’ll immediately associate it with the actor lip-syncing it, not the musician who created it. In fact, they might never even know the name of the musician behind it. Music in India is often a promotional tool for films. People will come to my YouTube channel and say, “Oh, wow, I had no idea you were a musician.” And on the other hand, there are people asking, “You’re an actor?”, because these two worlds are almost entirely separate.

Do you get recognised?
In India? Yeah, because they see my face. When there’s a film release, the promotions are all over the newspapers and the web. In South Africa, they would only recognize my voice. In Katwijk, no one recognizes my voice or my face.

When my neighbour was in Gambia, she was sitting in a cafe and recognized me on TV. One of my series, for some weird reason, has been dubbed into a hundred languages and is playing everywhere from Azerbaijan and Gambia to Japan. The weird thing is that I wasn’t very proud of this series, in which I was saving puppies, protecting babies, and falling in love with the princess. On the other hand, the bad guys were like torturing people on the way to work.

Do you plan on releasing an album someday?
I would say no. If I were to make an album, I’d probably spend three years in the studio, then you’d hear from me, and after that, I’d take another three years in the studio before you’d hear from me again. The problem is that I’m one of those people who will do something over and over again. It’s very difficult to set a deadline for an album, because there are so many moving parts. There are a lot of artists who can do it, but I think they have the resources to pull it off. They also have people advising them, saying, “No, stop working on that. It’s time to move on to the next song.” I don’t have that, and I don’t need that, because I’m doing it for myself anyway. But that’s why an album wouldn’t really work for me.

You’re planning to stay independent. What’s the reason for that?
Because no one owns my masters. This is not to be arrogant or condescending, but my music plays alongside Taylor Swift’s, and I have no music label. I have no one to answer to. What I'm saying is that so can anyone else's music, if you get it to the level of quality it needs to be. You just need to want it and work at it. When I was with Universal, they offered me the chance to record in their studio. It was ten times the price of a regular recording, and I’d owe them that money. That amount would come out of my royalties before I’d see anything. Essentially, they were giving me a loan to buy something at ten times the price, which I’d have to pay back before earning any royalties. Now, you can produce and distribute your own music, so what do you even need a label for?

Do you think the labels are “dying” nowadays?  
I think labels are dying; they’ve become bloated marketing companies. We don’t need them for distribution anymore because what do the labels use? Spotify. And what do we use? Spotify. Just get a distributor like I did. There are plenty out there that will get your music on all those platforms, and then you focus on bringing it to people’s attention, whether that’s through radio stations or curators. My music sits right next to Maroon 5 on Spotify, and you can’t tell the difference. Sure, you might like one song and dislike another, but in terms of quality, bit rate, album art, they’re identical. Never in the history of music could you be right next to a major label production, but now you can. It’s an incredible time to be an independent musician. There’s something really refreshing about what independent artists can bring without sacrificing anything.

What’s your biggest goal music-wise?
It's just to connect with people. So, for me, making music — I don't want to, diminish it — is secondary in terms of my career, but primary in terms of my artistic expression. I don't make much money from music; I spend the money I make acting, on music.

What’s in it for the future? 
I have one film in Tamil called L2: Empuraan, which is an action film, kind of an action-espionage thriller. Then I have a Hindi film called The Untold Story of C. Sankaran Nair, which is a courtroom drama that’s also historically based. So, that’s what’s happening on the film side. I’m obviously shooting more films, but those two are completed and slated for release in 2025. On the music side, I’m just putting the finishing touches on my next song, called ‘Promise Forever’, which should be out in a couple of months.