‘YOU HAVE TO CREATE YOUR AUDIENCE’

Says Rajasthani folk singer Mame Khan; adds you don’t need to sign up with a label to put out your music in today’s digital world

Music composer Amit Trivedi’s Coke Studio episode in the show’s season four was a lot of good things but one of the most important takeaways from that episode was the discovery of Rajasthani folk singer Mame Khan. He sang the song ‘Chaudhary’, which became one of the most popular songs that Coke Studio ever produced. The song brought the spotlight on him as well as renewed interest in folk music.

“Since I sang that song, people recognise me as ‘Chaudhary’ now,” says Khan. As he prepares to perform in the city on June 8, the Manganiyar singer hasn’t lost faith in today’s youth and says that they are cued in to folk music. “I will give you an example. I recently performed at NH7 in Pune and the crowd that attends this particular music festival is mostly youngsters in the age group of 16 to 26. The audience knew about my Bollywood songs as well as my folk songs, and they demanded that I sing my pure folk numbers such as ‘Saawan’ and ‘Piya balam’. It was such a warm feeling and I was so happy to see that our future generation is accepting folk music. Around 30,000 people attended the concert and they were well aware of folk music. As grateful as I am for this kind of reception, folk music deserves this kind of recognition,” says Khan.

Khan will be performing alongside Indian classical vocalist Kaushiki Chakraborty at NCPA, and he is very thrilled about it. “Kaushikiji is a wonderful singer and we are going to be doing a jugalbandi of sorts, where she will perform her classical numbers and I will sing my sufi and folk songs. The concept is folk meets classical. Actually, there is a lot of similarity between folk and classical music because whatever music we are familiar with today has originated from folk music. So, it’s going to be a lot of fun,” he says.

Khan belongs to a family of Manganiyar musicians and this legacy is something he is extremely proud of. “Folk music is in my blood and was passed on to me as a legacy that has been existing for more than 15 to 16 generations. We have been carrying it forward while also polishing it. Even today when the world is changing so rapidly and the tastes of music listeners is evolving, folk as a genre is getting a really good response from the youth. This journey of carrying forward the legacy of folk music is never-ending. When you are in this field you can never say that you have learnt everything there is to music. If you ever feel that you have learnt everything, then that means there is no space for you in the world,” says the singer, who has sung Bollywood songs such as ‘Baawre’ (Luck By Chance; 2009) and ‘Aave re hitchki’ (Mirzya; 2016).

Ask him if singing for Bollywood is what he does only on the side and he vehemently denies. He says, “There is no harm in singing for Bollywood. I have worked with some legendary people from the music industry including Amit Trivedi and Shankar Ehsaan Loy. I have sung in a Bengali film as well, so there is no harm in singing for commercial spaces but one thing I make sure is that whenever I sing anything I stay true to my roots and make an attempt to showcase my uniqueness. I try and include my roots somewhere in the song. After all it is music, so there is no harm in singing any kind of songs.”

So, what can artistes do to improve the reach of folk music in the country? “The folk singers we have today should record their songs and just put it out there for people to listen. You do not have to be associated with labels. It’s great if you can find a label, but today you can just record a song and put it on YouTube. Any singer can do that. So this will help better the extent of folk music’s reach. And that’s what I am trying to do. You have to create your audience,” he signs off.