‘A TENDENCY TO SAMPLE CLASSICS SANS CREDIT IN INDIA’

Raja Kumari feels there’s no harm in recreating old songs if it’s done right

Raja Kumari, who shifted base from US to India five years ago, has observed the Hindi music scene long enough. And here’s what the singersongwriter feels about it. “I have witnessed an explosion of hip hop in India... What’s been happening in the last few years, it’s not about gimmicks now, but real music. We have seen a lot of great musicians rise,” says the 36-year-old.

She recently released the song Made in India, which borrows the phrase made popular by singer Alisha Chinai’s 1995 song of the same name. Ask her what she feels about the trend of rehashes and recreations of old songs, and she says they need to be done right. “There are ways to pay homage, and then ways to take a song and do anything... There’s a tendency to sample without credit in India, which has a troublesome message. If you do it well, it’s always great to reintroduce songs,” adds the musician, who has sung film tracks such as Husn Parcham (Zero; 2018) and The Wakhra Song (Judgementall Hai Kya; 2019), as well as singles like NRI and City Slums.

On the subject of her journey in the industry, she shares that she had to take matters into her own hands instead of relying on others to market her.

“It’s been a journey of me trying to experiment and go universal. I have been through a lot of institutions, and the one thing I realised is that nobody had any idea how to market me,” she concludes.

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PHOTO: INSTAGRAM/THERAJAKUMARI