Kamakshi Khanna
| Picture Credit score: Particular Association
In a 2021 interview, the Grammy-winning English singer-songwriter Adele stated the very best recommendation she had ever acquired was: “Maintain your coronary heart protected and your music harmful.” These phrases grew to become a guiding mantra for one more younger musician 1000’s of miles away. For Kamakshi Khanna in Mumbai, 2020 was tempestuous; it was a crucible from which her songwriting emerged, uncooked and potent. Throughout this time, by means of her lockdown music sequence, Inexperienced Room Classes, she started to unravel the complexities of affection, loss, and the tumultuous journey of her twenties. Adele’s phrases did one thing inside her.
Her lockdown sequence gave beginning to her sophomore EP, Heartbreak 2020, which, in her phrases, “dives deep into the chaos of contemporary loneliness.”
Every music, she says, is a uncooked, real-life account of the varied situationships and relationships she navigated by means of her 20s. “From awkward dates and thoughts video games to short-term flings and unrequited like to nonetheless discovering a sliver of hope, there’s something in there for everybody.”
Kamakshi Khanna
| Picture Credit score:
Particular Association
After the EP was launched this June, Kamakshi is making ready to take it for a multi-city stay tour, beginning with Bengaluru on August 23.
“I’m excited to go by myself tour after performing for thus lengthy. What I’m wanting ahead to most is connecting with the viewers. Performing stay is a strong option to join with folks personally. Sharing the stage with my extremely gifted band is one other spotlight.”
With a background in each Hindustani and Western classical music, Kamakshi blends pop, R&B, and folks influences into her music. Her first Hindi single, ‘Qareeb’, in 2020, has shut to 2 million views on YouTube and over 1,000,000 audio streams throughout platforms. Her performances at main music festivals and rising fan base solidify her place as a rising star within the Indie music scene.
With Heartbreak 2020, Kamakshi dives headfirst right into a realm of uncooked emotion. “Each music on that EP is undeniably unhappy,” she admits. But, she is fast to level out that the venture is greater than only a wallow in despair. “I needed to current heartbreak in a unique gentle… to have enjoyable with it,” she says.
This duality is clear within the music movies and preparations, that are upbeat and vibrant, contrasting the sombre lyrics. Take ‘Love Is Not A…’ as an illustration. The lyrics paint a portrait of heartbreak: “broke down your partitions as you constructed up mine gave you my belief and my treasured time whenever you needed it however solely whenever you needed it.”
The music video, nevertheless, is a playful subversion, that includes Kamakshi in whimsical costumes impressed by iconic video video games like Tremendous Mario and Tomb Raider.
Although Kamakshi finds this artistic course of therapeutic, she can also be clear about its limitations. “It can’t be a substitute for precise remedy. When singing, you’re adorning your feelings and experiences to make them interesting. It helps me course of my emotions and are available to phrases with issues, however the true work occurs in remedy.”
Kamakshi’s songwriting course of is as numerous because the feelings she explores. “Typically I’m within the thick of an emotion and write about it instantly,” she says. ‘Love is Not A…’ is an instance of this uncooked immediacy. Not each music, nevertheless, is birthed in such a fiery second. “Different instances, I write about previous experiences as a option to course of them. Some songs are even born from utterly imagined situations.”
As soon as a music is completed, it undergoes a change. “It stops being concerning the particular one that impressed it,” she says. The main focus shifts from private narrative to common emotion. “I don’t need folks to concentrate on the precise individual behind the music; I need them to attach with the feelings themselves. It’s about reworking private ache right into a shared expertise.”
Kamakshi Khanna can be acting at Fandom at Gilly’s Redefined, Koramangala, on August 23. Tickets on Insider.
