What happens when three friends create a work of art? You love ‘every bit of it’, as singer and composer Kunal Pandit puts it. The former participant of Indian Idol is now out with a vibrant new number called ‘Maan Jana’. With a beautiful mix of electronic tunes and rhythms, Kunal along with producers Kshitij Bhatt and Ivan aka Bekxt, has produced a banger. To learn more about the song, the story behind it, and Kunal’s hot take on the realm of independent music, we indulge in a candid chat. Excerpts:
Tell us about the track
This is a beautiful one, three of us (Kshitij, Ivan and I) were club hopping on a November night in Mumbai and Kshitij, who is usually quiet, was in a little overly joyful mood and was flirting around. His failed attempts at flirting clicked an idea for me and I thought what if there was a song, telling the story of a boy asking out in the club for dance and fun, ‘Maan Jana’.
How was the score of the song zeroed in on?
The three of us came straight to the studio, I penned down the lyrics and we composed the first scratch, which later, Kshitij and Ivan produced. After almost five iterations, we finished the mixing and mastering of the song. I scored and composed most of the song parts I am highly influenced by the likes of Chris Brown and The Weeknd which is reflected in my composition. I am very happy that everyone is accepting this song in the pop and RnB category. Kshitij drew the final artwork on paper, traced it out and with his crazy Photoshop and AI skills, and voila! He got us the final artwork which is beautiful!
What is your take on independent artistes gaining prominence across the country?
India is the only country I believe calls music independent music just because it’s not written for a feature film, a web series or for a production house. We have to start identifying ourselves as musicians and not independent musicians, just because we are releasing a song by giving it to a third-party distributor. Even artistes releasing music via labels call itindependent music. But is it? To me, independent music is where I give myself a song brief that I want to put out in the world because it’s a feeling I am currently missing from the consumption of my playlist. Additionally, the audience in India, let’s face it, is always discovering music that is in a film or has a star status attached to it. For all such independent musicians, discovery is still hard and we have to do everything in our power to get the right audience without going bankrupt in the process. I will conclusively say that the discovery of independent acts is still quite slow in India, and we cannot do anything more than what we are already doing to make it better. Let time take care of its due course.
What’s the best part of working in a collaborative process for a musical project?
Speed! When working in collaboration, the turnaround time of finishing a song from scratch to the final mix is a breeze. Maybe it’s because I had a chance to work with talented musicians, but I love every bit of it. Whenever I am not feeling my best, I can talk to Kshitij and Ivan, and it turns into a new composition.
What else is in the pipeline?
We are mixing our next song with the working title, ‘Ik Dafa’, and planning its release in the first week of May. Next will be an EP where I am experimenting with my Indian classical music side. This EP will be featuring my father Pradeep Pandit,who has been my mentor from day one as well as some other prominent Indian classical musicians.
Maan Jana is out on all audio platforms.