I don’t like to segregate music: Amaal

Composer-singer Amaal Mallik is a multi-tasker and doesn’t differentiate between independent music and composing songs for films. The 27-year-old, who is comfortable working on both genres simultaneously, says, “For me, music is music. I don’t segregate work like that and never will, I guess. If a project interests me and allows me to express myself, I’ll dive into it without looking into whether it is independent music or a film.” Moreover, the singer feels demarcating music into genres also creates a mental divide of seriousness towards a project. “I’ve kept all my doors open for anybody to approach me,” says Amaal.

Amaal recently released the remake of of the hit song, Ghar Se Nikalte Hi, sung by his brother, Armaan Malik. Since its release, on April 3, the song has crossed over 24 million hits on YouTube. The original song from Papa Kehte Hain (1996) was composed by Rajesh Roshan and sung by Udit Narayan. Although Rajesh hasn’t heard Amaal’s version, he is sure that the veteran composer will not have a negative feedback about his recreation. He says, “He hasn’t heard the song yet. I have a lot of respect for him and his body of work and so I didn’t mess with the compo-sition. I’ve kept it the way it is and added my parts separ-ately. I’m sure he will not have bad things to say when he hears this version.” Elaborating on the song, he says, “I’ve always maintained that once you take up a project like this, you have to express your creativity, but within certain boundaries. I’ve added a rhythm pattern with some new guitar lyrics and flute parts in the song. There’s a perfect balance between the new and the old. And the antara (second verse) has been revamped a bit.”