Indian singer, flautist, and composer, Varijashree Venugopal recently received her first ever Grammy nomination in the Best Global Music Performance category for her collaboration with singer-songwriter Jacob Collier in the song A Rock Somewhere, and she is over the moon with the achievement. “As an artiste and an ever-growing student of music, any acknowledgement or pat on the back in form of awards always gives a sense of reassurance, saying that we are doing something of good impact. It’s a great acknowledgement, and a booster,” she says.
Ask her about how the collaboration with Jacob Collier came to happen and Varijashree Venugopal shares, “I love Jacob Collier for the avid, curious, genius musician that he is. He had personally reached out to me saying there is the song that he is hearing my voice in, and he is imagining that this would be a great amalgamation. He had already recorded (musician) Anoushka Shankar on it. I had a lot of space to explore and find my space in this entire coming together of sounds. Jacob and I also met when he was on tour in India and had a little exchange of music.”
The musician believes that this recognition will give more visibility to her music: “Some people who have no idea who I am, might turn around and check some things, and that is a win. An artiste just requires an audience with an open mind, who are ready and eager to see their art without any preconceived notion. It will definitely amplify the reach and the noticeability, and that’s the best part, because most of the times, we lose out on noticing things clearly because they are not published or promoted as much as mainstream music.”
Reflecting on the struggles of indie artistes, Varijashree says, “Independent music and independent musicians have always had this issue of not enough space and talks or promotion about their music. It is a small field, and independent artistes are still struggling to even be noticed. There are a few lucky ones who, through their hard work, get noticed in their own time. But it comes with a lot more effort and hard work than what would happen if there is a hit song in a film.”
But why does niche music like hers is recognised more in the West than in the country where it has originated from? “Here what happens is that mainstream is more popular because of the simple reason that it is more accessible and easy to listen to. It’s not that there is no complicated or intricate or extensively detailed music that is not coming out in mainstream, there is. But it’s the platform. In India, it is very rare that people separate music from films. But in the West, music is an industry in itself, that is why an award like Grammy exists. There is an an institution called the Recording Academy, which is exclusively for music. That space is where you can see the difference,” she responds.
Varijashree adds that a Grammy nomination would “at least steer more people towards our art”. She says, “I think that is the whole concept of the music community. That is what they are supposed to be doing through these awards and recognition. They’re telling people that ‘hey, there is this thing that is noteworthy. Check it out’.”
