He’s one of my oldest buddies from radio days back in the late-1990s. Nikhil Chinapa is a master of all formats. He’s a phenomenal RJ, a rock star VJ and a crowd-pulling DJ. Here’s our chat!
You and company, Submerge, have been the prime promoters of EDM (electronic dance music). Tell us about the journey.
My wife Pearl (I was her boyfriend back then), our dearest friend Hermit and I started Submerge as an alternative to the mainstream scene back in 2003. Over the years into a nationwide movement for electronic music across multiple cities, attracting scores of DJs and thousands of fans.
How popular has EDM become in India?
EDM is immensely popular right now and we’re also seeing tremendous growth in alternative sub-genres of the sound like Techno, Bass and Future House. Now there’s a slow re-emergence of trance that is coming back, though its roots are in melodic techno. I also see a steady growth in grime and trap—two other sub-genres that are slower tempo variants of electronic music.
Tell us about up-and-coming EDM artistes from India.
On the mainstream side of things there are Lost Stories and Kerano. In Techno, there is Ash Roy and Arjun Vagale. Recently, Tuhin Mehta and Browncoat have released a few really nice tunes. Kohra and Blot have been strong influences in the scene too. In bass, Nucleya has been busy creating his own sub-genre in the scene as well. It’ll be very interesting to see how that trajectory develops as his sound combines local flavour with high energy sounds from the electronic music landscape.