From Carnatic to rap and regional tunes, The Ikigai Project’s first collaboration will help you beat the lockdown blues 

The Ikigai Project initiated by Hyderabad-based musician Krishnan Ganesan released the first episode recently amid much love from fans and quite a few Instagram story shares. The project that Krishnan decided to name after the Japanese phenomenon that describes, ‘the reason for being’ was a platform for the musicians to get together during the lockdown, create an interesting medley which cuts across genre lines. “It is meant to be an independent platform for musicians to explore different genres, greet and collaborate,” says Krishnan, who is also a part of the multilingual fusion band, Niraval. “We had a master list of songs in all the languages and created a matrix of who can sing what and filtered them by tempo and scale,” Krishnan shares. While he came up with the initial idea and the vocal arrangement, musician Sivakumar worked on mix, placement and sequencing of the songs along with the rap and whistle. It features well-known tunes in languages like Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Malyalam.

Krishnan initially posted on social media, asking artists if they would be interested in such a project. He received several replies and then chose those whose sounds could combine beautifully together  “I tried to keep the diversity to a maximum in terms of language, ethnicity, vocal range, and tone. Additionally, I wanted to also showcase more than just vocals, so included a whistler and got a rapper onboard,” elaborates Krishnan.

The mash-up features Gomathi Iyer’s pitch-perfect vocals with Bhuwin Khursija’s rendition of Masakali (originally composed by A. R. Rahman, sung by Mohit Chauhan) and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s tracks that add a variation. Sharayu Sakri’s Kannada bits fuse beautifully and Sharon Nair’s bold vocals are a great addition to the diversity. Ganesh Krovvidi’s playback voice blends seamlessly and his Telugu vocals are mellifluous to the hilt. Siddhardha Kale uses whistling to play a perfect tune. Drummer Harshit Madan raps flawlessly and creates a bridge between two vocal medleys.

All the audio and video were recorded at their homes and most of the vocals were recorded on mobile phones or apps. The project took around 12 days from start to finish with all the artistes taking out time from their day jobs to come together for this project