His glistening eyes reflect intent and conviction. His smile is heartfelt when he hears something he likes. Invariably reticent at the start of a conversation, his sonic world opens up to you gradually, one note at a time. Ultimately, though, it reveals itself, like in the fullness of a major chord, echoing thought, emotion and purpose.  

It’s clear Jivraj Singh, one half of the now-defunct dream-pop duo Parekh & Singh, is now leading a quiet but busy life pursuing a different calling. He’s seeking fulfilment in a kind of music that seeks to break barriers, both for the performer and listener; music that is born out of rejecting and re-inventing forms, dismantling and recalibrating genre conventions to give birth to a music that is richer, complex and uniquely multi-dimensional.   

“I have generally been more interested in music where the pulse is complex, isn’t stated very obviously, or is seemingly suspended entirely – music which gives me more agency,” Singh tells me at his home studio, set up with sundry recording equipment and a wide array of percussive delights, like rattles, shakers, wood and ceramic cowbells and what not. There’s a drum kit too. All these and more were in full bloom at one of his gigs early this year in Kolkata. Inky Ping, featuring Jivraj and producer Varun Kishore, was billed as a presentation of “experimental improvisation” wherein the audience was treated to a shape-shifting symphony, a guitar and piano adding to the mix which also included recorded sounds of crickets chirping and Jivraj actually crushing paper and pouring water on stage.       

More recently, Jivraj reframed the contours of experimentation by collaborating with Amyt Datta (guitar) and Mainak ‘Bumpy’ Nagchowdhury (upright bass) for a concert titled Streams and Branches on Sept. 6, 2025 at Skinny Mo’s Jazz Club. Relying only on sparse “wispy motifs” and the “overall sound world” of some of the guitar guru’s compositions, the trio created a fresh musical experience dedicated to the memory of mentors Gyan Singh, Monojit ‘Kochu’ Datta and John Cage, their birth anniversaries coinciding in September. 

If reading Cage has helped shape Jivraj’s thinking on music and beyond, parents Gyan and Jayashree played a significant role in his musical upbringing. While they were on tour, little Jivraj would often fall asleep on stage behind the drums. “I do have a fond memory of Nondon Bagchi (big daddy of drums from rock band High) putting one stick in his mouth and playing with his right hand while holding on to me with his left, so that I wouldn’t fall off my chair at 2 am,” he recalls. Over time, Jivraj was old enough to earn the seat behind the kit, playing in Gyan and Jayashree’s band, Skinny Alley, with both Amyt and his brother Kochu as bandmates. “All four of these people were integrally spiritual, and I feel extremely fortunate to have had access to that dimension, first-hand with the three whom I encountered in person, and through the wealth of material that surrounds the fourth (Cage).” 

Streams and Branches was special and deeply personal, a definite pointer to Jivraj’s universe of music-making. Centered on the calmness of body and mind, the focus is on being attentive and receptive to the moment. “It’s an incredibly delicate state, one that I reckon most musicians neglect. Because this mode is so gossamer-like, it can only come from regular practice.” Hence, in the run-up to their memorial concert, Jivraj, Amyt and Mainak did commit to a week’s rehearsal to encounter this state of awareness. “We played our instruments individually and together. We listened to records, looked at scores, texts, photographs, paintings and graphics; had conversations, drank tea and sat in silence (not enough). Eventually, we began to come into a shared space – emotional, intellectual, physical,” Jivraj reveals. 

Since the idea was to break new ground with Amyt’s compositions (“Ironic Bironic,” “Corridors,” D –For Brother (1992) tunes “Neelima,” “Village X”), rehearsals were held within “four fields of forces,” explains Jivraj. First, the band members and their individual circumstances: Mainak, playing upright bass, had to shed many of his innovations associated with years of playing the electric bass while Amyt had to deal with a set of unique challenges associated with the experimental tuning system he was using. The second field was Amyt’s compositions and understanding their emotional undertones. A large part of the rehearsals was like “controlled collisions” between Amyt’s compositional field and Jivraj’s studies of various musical aspects, both micro and macro. The final field was the outer world, the venue, audience, promotions, logistics. “Ideally, we try to bring the tension of the concert to the rehearsal, and the relaxation of the rehearsal to the concert,” notes Jivraj, alluding to the stated objective of experimental art — the collaborative participation of performer/composer and listener/observer. 

On gig day, the music was richly vibrant. Frenetic energy gave way to unbridled joy. Deep introspection led to moments of melancholy and silence. The textured improvisation allowed the imagination of colors too; from raging red to bemused blue, Streams and Branches was a multidimensional exposition of ideas and sounds. There was, admittedly, a large overlap with jazz but the intention was to destabilize and critique the idea of genre and not play by the rules. Not that it works all the time, admits Jivraj, as one is always falling into some habit or pre-conceived way of doing. “However, just to have this dialectic alive in the experience is productive in a radical way.” 

At the core of Jivraj’s experimental endeavours, therefore, is an acceptance of the notion that the listening activity itself needs to be cultivated, a concept espoused by Cage and other musician-thinkers like Christian Wolff, James Tenney, Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Lucier or Karlheinz Stockhausen. So, how does one listen to what is not typically considered music? Jivraj explains with a question. While listening to a recording or a performance, do we account for the sound of the air-conditioning in the room, the tinkle of cutlery from the kitchen or a neighbour’s cough? If we do, it opens up many more aspects for aesthetic appreciation. “Taking note of their possible relationships in terms of time, space and texture is very helpful.” For Streams and Branches, unbeknownst to the rest of the gathering, auxiliary sound sources were planted with four members of the audience. The reality is, as Jivraj notes, the “activity of listening” doesn’t require too much effort in most familiar musical contexts. “A music that is experimental will encourage all listeners involved to (re)activate their auditory apparatus,” he says. 

This form of listening can only happen with practice. The idea is to develop the ability to step back and take non-judgmental views of things to widen the periphery of imagination. Jivraj is getting there, dipping into it at least a few times a day. It’s also his coping mechanism. “I use it to deal with the spectrum of reactions, from annoyance to suffering, that is triggered by the auditory chaos of living in urban India,” he says, his eyes glistening with a hint of a smile. Essentially, for Jivraj, everything we do can be music. But only if we listen musically. 

(This article is based on face-to-face and email conversations held over a few months after the Streams and Branches concert in Calcutta on Sept. 6, 2025)   

Rolling Stone India: What do these musicians mean to you? 

Jivraj Singh: Gyan seemed to truly embody the admittedly difficult ideal of not having an ego, while also being able to hold his ground with quiet strength. It was a remarkable balance, and I have only recently begun to understand and appreciate this ability of his. He was also very keen about helping other musicians, giving advice on equipment purchase and repair, etc. A large number of musicians have benefitted from his (and Jayashree’s) kindness… And we continue to do so. 

And Monojit ‘Kochu’ Datta? 

Monojit and I played pop and dance gigs together in Skinny Alley. I hadn’t really woken up to the idea of ‘percussion’ at that point – I was still thinking of drum-set and percussion as separate categories. So perhaps I wasn’t in my most receptive mode… (But) playing together was very educational and enjoyable. 

Anything specific you can remember? 

One time, I think I had just said something along the lines of, ‘I don’t do any hand drumming.’ In response, Monojit said, ‘all drumming is hand drumming.’ Also, he wouldn’t practice anything fancy. Instead, he would spend hours working on seemingly simple foundations. No doubt he was operating at some sublimely deep levels. 

Amyt Datta told me that at times he feels you know his music better than himself. 

Amyt is incredibly generous in the way he opens up his music to me. He’s the person I’ve spent most musical time with, and he is definitely my primary musical influence. Many aspects of the way I approach the drum-set are derived from his guitar playing. At this point, we share a common musical language – particularly of rhythm and texture – at a very deep level. 

And John Cage? 

He’s been a source of knowledge, encouragement, humour… something of a constant companion since 2021. I was undeniably pleased to discover that he shared a birthday (September 5) with Gyan. I’ve read many of his lectures, essays, letters and textual experiments. Also, his scores are very mind-expanding – to play from, of course, but even just to look at for their graphic qualities. 

Shantanu Datta is a Kolkata-based journalist. He is the author of Calling Elvis: Conversations With Some of Music’s Greatest (Publisher: Speaking Tiger)

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When Above & Beyond last came to India in 2018, off the back of their album Common Ground, the country’s electronic music ecosystem was still just a fraction of the behemoth it has since become. Parties were a little rough around the edges, the pickings for international headliners were far fewer, and audiences were largely driven by curiosity rather than any deep-rooted reverence. Even so, India welcomed the progressive trance pioneers with open arms, soaking in their melodic harmonies and luminous progressions as a source of solace.

And when they made their long-awaited return to the country after seven years at Sunburn Mumbai 2025 last week, it felt as though that force field of emotion was still very much intact.

The trio, comprising Tony McGuinness, Jono Grant, and Paavo Siljamäki, have long shared a special connection with India, one that runs deeper than touring routes. 25 years ago, they named their label Anjunabeats after hearing about the free-spirited trance parties that had slowly grown out of Goa’s Anjuna beach in the late Eighties and early Nineties, and resonating with its values of community and transcendence. 18 years ago, they made their first voyage to the country as headliners at Sunburn’s debut edition in 2007. And as Grant and Siljamäki return to headline the festival’s latest incarnation, they admit that while much has changed, the love they receive from their Indian fans remains the same.

“Sometimes, when I’ve been a little nervous about how things are going to go, what I remember from the good nights in India is this feeling that, whatever happens, we’re here for you,” Siljamäki tells Rolling Stone India when we catch up backstage. “There’s a very warm kind of enthusiasm that is here, and it’s lovely,” Grant agrees. 

From the moment they walk into the venue, they appear relaxed and at ease, but never complacent. Even after countless visits to India, they seem fired up with a clear sense of curiosity. Paavo even walks around with a film camera slung over his shoulder, as if trying to take it all in once more. Their faces light up with smiles when they think back to those early days in India and the moments that first forged a bond with the country. Grant recalls, “I don’t know if there’s a single memory I can pinpoint, but just coming over to India is a visceral, holistic experience. And it’s fascinating to see, even just the drive [of the fans]. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the gigs are the gigs, but the experience of being in India, from the food to the culture, the people, what you see outside, is life-changing.” Siljamäki adds, “I remember I was on the balcony overlooking what was going on at the Chowmahalla Palace with Matt Zo, and we were getting goosebumps. I don’t know why, but I literally remember standing there looking down onto the trees and everything; it was such a beautiful night.”

Above & Beyond’s current India run is part of a global tour to take Bigger Than All of Us, their first electronic album in seven years, back to the community it was written for. An excavation of the essence that first defined their sound, working on the album also meant reaffirming what it means to be a group more than two decades in. 

“Obviously, in 25 years, there’s so much life that happens, but I felt like it’s actually nice that [fundamentally] we’re three individuals coming together for a greater cause. And right now, it feels even more like that,” admits Siljamäki, talking about what led them to the album. “There was such a big break between albums, it gave us a little bit of time to have some space and then reconnect with the community rather than just doing the next album and rolling into it without thinking about it,” adds Grant. 

When asked what the audience’s response to the album has been like so far, Siljamäki says, “I think we were at the point where we were playing the old tracks, and it was getting almost a bit scary. It’s like, okay, ‘If we now do something new, is it gonna connect? Is it gonna work out?’ But we’ve had songs like ‘Carry Me Home’ become big sing-along moments at some of the shows. So it’s been really amazing for us to see that there’s a future, not just the past.”

That reassurance carried straight into their set in India, which felt like a reminder of why Above & Beyond’s music has become so therapeutic to listeners across the world (and why their long-running radio show, now approaching its 700th episode, is so fittingly titled Group Therapy). Built on emotional release as much as nostalgic momentum, the performance featured their foundational rolling basslines, slow-burning melodic builds, and effervescent drops, moving fluidly between eras as it folded timeless touchstones like “Sun & Moon” and “Blue Monday” into newer chapters such as “Quicksand,” featuring longtime collaborator Zoë Johnston on vocals, and “Letting Go,” with Malou.

Bigger Than All of Us, released in July this year, also lands at a time when much of the electronic music landscape is dominated by darker, more aggressive build-ups and basslines. Against that intensity, the album’s sweeping range of trance and drum & bass feels soul-baring and optimistically melodic, almost like it was written to be an act of defiance. When we probe if that’s the case, Grant shrugs and points to the very philosophy that is so deeply embedded in this album: “The industry is changing all the time, and we’ve seen it change so many times,” he points out. “From my perspective, there’s too much in the music industry looking at what people are doing and trying to analyze the scene. [People will say] like techno is big this year, and this is big, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t really care what’s big this year or this week or if it’s going to be big next year, because it’s more about the message we want to have in our music, rather than the mechanism and the style. Those are just ways of dressing something, but really, it’s about the ideas and the sentiment behind it, the feelings and emotions behind the tunes, not the production style [that’s trending] this week or this month.” 

This fierce commitment to their vision seems to have paid off. Grant says, “I’m a fan of various bands, and sometimes when they release a new album, it takes time for listeners to really love them the way they did the first album they heard. With our fans, some consider Tri-State the best album because it was their first, or maybe Group Therapy. But it’s nice to see people connect with these new songs, especially when you’ve got that kind of baggage of people being too familiar with a certain era of your music.” 

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When Sara Landry commands the main stage as the Day 1 headliner of Sunburn 2025, searing synths, industrial kick snares, and high-BPM flares are put through the wringer. It’s a breakneck rhythm that hits the dustbowl of Mumbai’s Infinity Bay like a tornado, sweeping up anyone caught in its dizzying swirl. But those familiar with Landry’s rivetingly dark sound know this chaos has been carefully ordained by the High Priestess of Hard Techno.  

“Every time I play somewhere new, I end up with this intense buzz, this vibration; it’s hard for me to sleep,” she tells Rolling Stone India. Talking to us backstage just moments before unleashing her frenetic brand of techno, Landry is disarmingly warm. Sporting an all-black ensemble and her signature winged eyeliner, she speaks thoughtfully, smiles often, and carries herself with a grounded ease.

On the decks, though, it’s a whole other story. “Every musical experience is an exchange of energy,” she points out, explaining how much of her on-stage persona feeds off her audience’s aura. “It’s like me opening myself and channeling things to the crowd, and then their energy comes back to me. Every place has a different flavor, almost like a different spice blend. It reflects how people are feeling, what’s happening culturally, or how they connect to whatever source energy governs us all.”

Call her esoteric or call her an enchantress, the Austin-bred, Amsterdam-based DJ and producer has gone from cutting her teeth in New York’s underground warehouse circuit to steadily rising the ranks as one of the most compelling names in techno. Characterized by cavernous inflections with a deeply spiritual undercurrent, her high-frequency sound, often referred to as “witchy warehouse techno,” has earned her a spot on some of the biggest festival lineups this year, from Tomorrowland to Coachella. But for the self-proclaimed energy healer, India was always on the radar. 

“I’ve known I was coming for a while,” she says. “I’ve talked to so many people about India, and everybody tells you it just doesn’t compare: how the energy feels here, the people, everything. It feels really special to be here.”

Landry’s inclination towards India is likely a result of her fascination with ritual and spiritual practice, a core belief system that permeates everything she does. “I’ve always been very interested in Hinduism and the culture,” she says. “I think it’s such a beautiful way of connecting with deity and with spirit, and I love the stories that surround the deities of Hinduism. I would love to go and visit the sites and see the temples, and obviously see all of the beautiful monuments that you guys have. There’s so much beautiful architecture and so many beautiful structures here, and I would love to go and experience them in person.”

In July this year, Landry went viral after dropping a remix of the garba track “Nagada Sang Dhol” during her set at Serbia’s EXIT Festival with Indira Paganotta. But while she often layers chants and mantras over her ricocheting basslines, she made the conscious decision to veer away from that during her three-city India tour. 

“I love those tracks, and they mean so much to me,” she says. “But I didn’t want to do anything that could be offensive or feel disrespectful. So tonight, I chose not to play those tracks, just to be culturally respectful.” Still, it hasn’t stopped her from experimenting with regional textures to curate a more conscious quality to her live set. “I like to sample local sounds, local noises, just to feel the place more deeply,” she adds. 

When asked how she feels about techno and psy-trance evolving from underground, ritualistic spaces to more mainstream festival stages like Sunburn, she is quick to point out that she doesn’t like to put labels on things. “The sonic culture moves of its own volition,” she shrugs. “I can’t really control where it goes. I just know what sounds and energies I enjoy, what feels special. A lot of that lives in psy-techno, psytrance, and hard dance. I don’t really care what it’s called. I just want to make things that feel new and forward-thinking.”

For Landry, performing in India is also deeply personal. “Every show, I always have Indian fans asking, ‘When are you coming?’ With my schedule, we hadn’t made it here yet. But to headline a festival alongside acts like David Guetta and Above & Beyond, whose music I was listening to long before I was in a headliner position, feels very special. It’s nice to hold that torch, inspire other women, and share my music and energy with so many wonderful people.”

Between a near-constant global touring schedule with her Eternalism live show, high-profile festival takeovers, the release of “GIRLBOSS”, a confrontational, self-authored single that marked her first foray into vocal performance, and clinching the highest-ever spot for a hard techno artist in DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs, this year has cemented Landry’s shift from an underground force to full-fledged cultural figure. The pace has been unforgiving but deliberate. In 2026, she says, the focus is on a hard reset. “I’m about to have two months off, so I’ll be writing another album, which is exciting. I’m looking forward to pushing my solo headline show for Eternalism, expanding those ideas, and deepening the creative vision for everything we have planned. It’ll be nice to spend more time being creative, which I don’t get a ton of while on tour.”

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NAV doesn’t describe himself as mysterious. That idea was thrust on him by the outside world — a byproduct of sunglasses, silence, and a career that seemed to accumulate platinum plaques and chart numbers without ever offering much explanation. When I ask him to strip all of that away — the albums, the attention, the mythology — his answer lands with an almost confrontational honesty. 

“I’m a well-raised man. Two very good parents. And I’m a very grateful person and a quick learner,” he says, pausing briefly before adding, “A very fast learner.” 

It’s not an attempt to dodge the question, nor an exercise in humility. It’s orientation — one developed over years of watching the world as much as participating in it. And as our conversation stretches on — moving through Rexdale basements, racist slurs in suburban Canadian classrooms, months of financial pressure that pushed him to quit music altogether, and the strange normalcy of studios The Weeknd, Travis Scott and Future drifted in and out of — it becomes clear that NAV’s understanding of success has never aligned with the world’s expectations of it. In fact, visibility came later, consistency came first, and peace of mind, it turns out, was always the end goal. 

That grounding is deeply tied to his upbringing. Long before Toronto became a global music export hub, and long before NAV’s voice found a presence in modern rap, his childhood was shaped by closeness and compression. His maternal uncle left India at 13, moving first to London and then to Canada, triggering a wave that pulled the rest of the family with him. What followed wasn’t a series of individual moves, but a collective one. Parents, siblings, cousins, spouses — everyone collapsed into a single household, sharing space, responsibility, and survival. 

“We all moved into one house,” NAV tells me. “All my mom’s brothers and sisters and husbands and kids. And I was raised there until I was like three years old.” 

That early environment still influences how he moves through the world. Even now, NAV admits he feels most at ease when surrounded by people — a comfort rooted in those early years when solitude simply didn’t exist. While many artists romanticize isolation as the price of creation, NAV’s relationship with being alone has always been different. “The toughest thing for me to do is be alone,” he says. “So when I spend time alone is when I find, like, a center.” 

Music didn’t enter his life as an ambition so much as proximity. One uncle was professional singer, another played keys, and studios weren’t intimidating or inaccessible spaces — they were familiar rooms that family members moved in and out of after work. The first time NAV saw how a song came together, it didn’t feel like a dream revealing itself; it felt procedural. 

“I’d seen how the songs get made, and I told my mom I want to do it,” he recalls. His uncle bought him a small piece of equipment. 

Outside the safety of home, the difference was obvious. Growing up in predominantly white suburban Canadian schools, NAV encountered racism early and directly — not in coded language, but blunt slurs that made it clear where he stood. “When I was growing up, at first, there was a lot of racism,” he says. “It was mostly white people who were in school. The racist white kids would call us Pakis, this, this, that.” 

That changed by middle school, when immigration patterns reshaped his environment. Punjabi children, Jamaican families, and West Indian households began filling classrooms and neighborhoods, creating a more layered sense of community. “It became very multicultural,” NAV says. 

By the time he began making beats at 16, music wasn’t yet framed as escape or aspiration. It was instinct — a place his attention landed naturally. Progress, however, was slow and uneven. Well into his 20s, NAV was still recording wherever he could make it work, often in his mother’s house, surrounded by fragile equipment that barely held together. “I was recording songs at my mom’s house, like, in my bedroom,” he says. “It was a hundred-dollar microphone, a laptop. My equipment was broken.” 

This is the stretch most success narratives erase — the years where nothing clicked, when quitting felt rational, even responsible. NAV walked away from music more than once. He tried to make money in the streets, exploring stability as an alternative to obsession. “I tried to do a lot of different things,” he says. “I was running around in the streets, getting money. Then I tried to work regular jobs.” 

One of those jobs, training as an electrician, brought a sense of clarity. On site, NAV wore headphones constantly, using music to endure work that never felt like his own. When a coworker complained about a mistake, and his boss banned headphones altogether, the restriction hit harder than expected. “That’s when I knew, like, I had to quit,” he says. “Just try music again.” 

That decision didn’t arrive in a vacuum. At home, the pressure had intensified. His father lost a stable forklift job when the company shut down, plunging the family into financial uncertainty and forcing responsibilities onto NAV and his sister that they’d never carried before. “Shit got really tough on me, my sister,” he says. “With that pressure and not getting any success out of the music that I’m working on, it just made me [feel] like, fuck music. I can’t do it.” 

What ultimately pushed him back wasn’t inspiration — a concept NAV openly distrusts — but dissatisfaction with everything else. “When you try to figure what you want to do in life, you’ve got to go do stuff that you don’t want to do,” he explains. “I just didn’t like the feeling of that.” That philosophy still underpins how he operates now, prioritizing discipline over motivation and showing up over waiting. “You can’t wait for inspiration,” he says flatly. “Inspiration comes to you when you least expect it.” 

By the time NAV stepped into his first truly major studio session, he wasn’t chasing a breakthrough so much as just producing, doing what he had quietly done for years. That session happened during Starboy, with The Weeknd standing directly behind him as he worked. “He was like, make some beats,” NAV remembers. “And I made three beats really fast, and he started singing right behind me.” 

What followed was access to studios that felt communal rather than transactional. Travis Scott dropping by, songs taking shape without ceremony, music becoming work, and work becoming routine. “Travis Scott’s coming over,” NAV remembers. “He’s just coming over. Like, every artist is just coming around and casually, like, yo, this is NAV. And here’s the song and they all like my music and we all work together.” 

As labels began flying him to Los Angeles with offers, NAV said no — deliberately and repeatedly. He read, paid attention, and understood that moving too early meant losing leverage. “I just kept saying no to everybody,” he says. XO, the Canadian music label founded by The Weekend, wasn’t even on his radar at first; they didn’t sign artists at the time, at least not in the way he was imagining. So when the call finally came, it felt like the universe breaking pattern. “I never even thought of XO as an option because they don’t sign artists,” he says. “So when they called me, I knew instantly, like, this is it. That was an instant yes. Right away.” 

The partnership that followed wasn’t a conventional major-label story. Before there was a record deal on the table, there was investment — literal and emotional. “Cash [XO] was like, hey, we don’t want to go sign a record dealer and get like, shitted on,” NAV says. “So let’s build the leverage.” CashXO (co-founder of XO Records) poured his own money into visuals and infrastructure. “Cash put almost a million dollars out of his own pocket to shoot videos and whatever,” NAV says. “And then La Mar [Taylor] would be there finding the camera guy, styling me. Yeah. He did everything hands-on.” Those early years were less about aesthetics than architecture: working out how NAV should look, sound, and exist in public, while still feeling like himself. 

Today, his operation is leaner, guided more by trust than scale. The core is small now — mostly NAV and Buck$y Luchiiano — but the principle hasn’t changed. “You can’t do anything alone,” he says. “It’s impossible. Like, even like if you go work in a company, like there’s multiple employees doing different things. So it’s the same thing in music.” The job isn’t just about management or logistics; it’s about ego — or rather, the lack of it. “You need a team with no ego, no pride,” he adds. “Everybody got each other’s back, and teamwork is dream work.” 

That belief was tested most clearly on his 2025 album OMW2 Rexdale, a project he doesn’t position as his biggest or boldest, but as something else entirely. “It’s more like a passion project,” he explains. The seed for it came from a decision most artists at his level would avoid: opening up a direct channel to fans and then actually listening. NAV started a Discord server and watched it swell to around 20,000 people, many of them day-one listeners who weren’t shy about saying exactly what they wanted from him. “They would just complain, complain, complain,” he says. “Tell me they want this kind of song, they want Old NAV back.” 

What stayed with him wasn’t just the volume of those demands, but the way they began to influence his own decision-making. For an artist who had spent most of his career letting the music speak and avoiding over-explaining his choices, being pulled into that level of commentary felt disruptive. “It kind of hurt me a little bit because I listened to them too much,” he admits. The feedback began to shape how he saw himself in relation to his catalogue and his audience. 

The album that came out of it wasn’t designed to reset his career or unlock a new era. It was built to give that core section of his fanbase what they’d been asking for and, in his mind, to close a loop. “I feel like the album was conversely successful,” he says. “But for my day one fans and for, like, them, I know they were satisfied and happy, and they can move on now. No more Old NAV — Old NAV gone.” He talks about it less as a triumphant return to a sound and more as an intentional goodbye to a version of himself that fans refused to let go of. 

Not everyone around him loved it. His close friends — “mostly black, Jamaican people,” as he describes them — like him better in a heavier, more aggressive mode. “They want to hear aggressive,” he says. “They like when I go aggressive.” He found himself explaining to them that this wasn’t about chasing numbers or pleasing everyone; it was about finishing something. “I was just like explaining to them, look, like I have to close the album,” he remembers. “And the only way I can close it is by giving these kids what they want. I try my best and sacrifice myself for the kids.” The fans wanted outros, interludes, “slow stuff, dream, dream,” even when he wasn’t creatively in that space anymore. It took time to find the right beats, to get into that headspace again. “I wasn’t even in the mood to make that stuff,” he says. “And it would take me so long to find beats, and, like, the right beats took me forever.” 

When the dust settled, the numbers didn’t match his highest expectations. He doesn’t dress that up. “I didn’t do as good as I wanted to,” he says plainly. But in another way, the project did exactly what it was supposed to do. “They left me alone and let me do whatever I want to do,” he adds. The constant “Old NAV” comments have faded. The pressure to recreate a specific era has shifted off his shoulders. 

That shift has changed how he’s thinking about the next phase. With the old demands quieted, NAV is recording more freely again, leaning into whatever he feels like making instead of trying to reverse-engineer what people say they miss. “Now it’s all about my friends’ opinions for the new project,” he says. The urgency that once surrounded every release — the sense that each drop had to prove something — has softened into something more deliberate. 

The weight of other people’s opinions hasn’t been harmless over the years. When I ask if criticism has affected his mental health in a real way, he doesn’t hesitate. “Absolutely,” he says. It’s not one or two random comments that get to him, but patterns — when “more than 10, 20 people” are saying the same thing and the numbers line up with what they’re saying. That’s when he knows he has to pay attention and adjust, the way an athlete would if their weak points kept showing up on tape. At the same time, he understands when it’s time to pull back. “Therapy is good,” he says simply, as both a personal truth and a recommendation. 

His idea of success has shifted shape along the way. Earlier in his career, every new milestone seemed to immediately trigger the question of what came next. He racked up platinum singles, gold albums, and placements like “Lemonade,” climbing into the Billboard charts in ways he never expected. “I never like, I never really started enjoying the moment until now,” he admits. Even the physical proof of those achievements has begun to feel different. His house doesn’t have the wall space to keep up with the number of plaques anymore. “My house, I have no room on my walls for the plaques,” he says. “I just put them in my garage in boxes.” 

The achievements he singles out now are specific and measured: “Two Number One albums in a row,” he says, referring to Bad Habits and Good Intentions. “Top 10 on Billboard with ‘Lemonade.’” Landing a placement in a Spider-Man film with “the best radio and petrol.” “So that were like my three biggest accomplishments,” he says, half-laughing at the phrasing but fully serious about the pride behind it. 

The story that seems to move him most, though, has nothing to do with chart positions. It’s the night he finally brought his family to see him perform at an arena in Toronto — the first time they ever saw him on stage. He waited on purpose. “I wanted to wait till I did something big,” he says. He sent three or four black trucks to pick them up, had them driven through the same underground entrances reserved for basketball players, and made sure there was a private room and a suite where they could watch. His mom cried the whole time. “That’s when I feel like they understood,” he says. That show was years into his career. “That was the first show they ever saw.” 

As his touring map has widened, his understanding of the audience has evolved with it. Coachella, which was the first booking he ever got as an artist back in 2016, forced him to level up his performance early. He wasn’t ready then, by his own admission, and had to take a few shows just to practice. When he returned years later to the Sahara Tent, leaping into a crowd of tens of thousands, he felt like a different version of himself. Japan stood out because of how engaged people were, even when they didn’t know every song. “Even if they didn’t know the song that I’m performing,” he says, “they’re just jumping, excited, happy.” Rolling Loud in Thailand, a stint in Riyadh performing for a fight promotion where he was put on TV between bouts — all of it added new contexts for his music to live in. 

India, though, carries its own weight. For a long time, he genuinely didn’t know what his presence here looked like beyond social media. “Being in America all the time, I couldn’t really tell, like, if I had fans or…” he trails off. “So I had to come here.” This run isn’t about checking a box or proving a point. It’s about putting real faces and energy to numbers he’d been seeing from afar, and about understanding his place in a scene that has been building its own momentum with or without him. 

On the ground, that’s translated into both friendships and collaborations. His “Punjabi success,” as he calls it, really began with Money Musik — the producer he found at 17 who now moves in his own orbit, making records with artists like Lil Uzi Vert and AP Dhillon. “He’s my golden boy,” NAV says, proud that he doesn’t have to watch over his work anymore. “I didn’t really have to do much,” he adds. “Now I don’t even have to watch him.” 

His new song with Karan Aujla grew out of a simple internal question: who should get the first look from him in Punjabi music? He watched Aujla’s journey — “a lot of bad videos,” a long grind, the kind of consistency that turns into ubiquity — and respected what it took to get there. They eventually linked up through Ikky, the producer NAV now talks to a lot. “So, me and Ikky linked up and clicked instantly and became friends,” he recalls. “And I guess Ikky’s like, yo, Karan, we got to do something.” The result is a remix of Aujla’s track “Daytona” that the duo released during Aujla’s headliner set at Rolling Loud India. Best part? NAV only met Aujla in person the day of the show. “It’s crazy,” he says of that timing, but it feels right to him. 

Then some relationships are still in motion. He met some local rappers at events — like the night at Shah Rukh Khan’s son’s party, where “everybody was there” — and they traded numbers, even if lining up studio time across continents was complicated. NAV constantly checks in on emerging artists he likes, messages people like Cheema Y when their songs catch his ear. And he’s clear about who else he wants to eventually work with. “Of course,” he says when I ask about AP Dhillon. An entire project with Indian artists, he tells me, isn’t out of the question. “Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. In the near future. Yeah? Yeah. For sure.” 

NAV looks beyond Indian artists as a market segment, talks about them as part of a larger arc he sees himself connected to — a wave of brown artists becoming global on their own terms. “I love you guys, and I do this for us,” he says when I ask if he has a message for fans here. “And I just hope to see just more and more brown artists emerging and becoming successful and just taking over the world.” 

Looking at NAV now, it’s tempting to frame this period as a clean arrival point — the chapter where everything finally makes sense. But that would miss what he’s actually describing. What’s happening is alignment: between the kid raised in a crowded house, the artist who kept saying no until the right door opened, and the man now learning to prioritize peace over noise. The “mystery” that once got projected onto him was never distance for the sake of it; it was restraint, survival, and choice. 

Now, he doesn’t seem particularly interested in maintaining even that. He isn’t chasing anything anymore. He’s choosing carefully what, and who, he carries forward. 

NAV wears jewellery by IRIS Fine Jewels

Cover Credits
Creative Director: Peony Hirwani
Photographer: Samrat Nagar
Executive Editor: Shamani Joshi
Creative Producer: Prachee Mashru
Stylist: Rushi Honmore
Hair & Makeup: Bugz Hairmafia
Motion Cover Director & Editor: Jonathan Mathew
Production Assistant: Dalia Nouf Shaikh
Junior Editorial Associate: Sharanyaa Nair
Photography Assistants: Zahrah Vahanvaty & Suraj Seksaria
Cover Layout: AK Digitals
Styling Assistants: Shriyaa Kirdat & Pyu Mishra
Dressman: Mukhtaar Shaikh
DOP: Vivan Shukla
Colorist: Vedant Kothari
BTS: Vivan Shukla
Interactive Video: Jonathan Mathew
Editorial Intern: Shradha Paul
Brand Team: Agent, Sebastian Shaji
Head of Brand Partnerships & Experiences: Esha Singh
Business Head: Pawan Thukral
Brand Manager: Veer Mehta
Luxury Car Partner: Jaguar Land Rover
Catering Partner: Hundo Pizza
Location: Vitamin Studio, Andheri

The post COVER STORY: NAV On The Brown Boy’s Past, Present and What Comes After appeared first on Rolling Stone India.

Fifteen years after Animal and Cannibal, Kesha is finally feeling glittery again. Now that her long legal battle with producer Dr. Luke is over, she’s ready to reembrace her career breakthrough, which she just celebrated with Animal + Cannibal 15th Anniversary, a deluxe reissue with bonus tracks. In a recent episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, she took an in-depth look back at that time. To hear the whole episode, go here for the podcast provider of your choice, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or just press play above. A condensed version of that conversation follows.

Good to see you. You’ve been well?
I’ve been insane. But in the best of ways. I was thinking about this yesterday — for 10 years it was really not fun at all. It was so heavy. I had the life sucked out of me. And then when I got this insane call that I was gonna be free in three months’ time, it was like being in a movie. It was such an insane phone call to get. And from that moment onward, I’ve just been on 11. So it’s crazy, but I’m good and I feel very alive.

So the call was telling you that you were free of your old record contract. But unpack “on 11” for me.
Literally the second I got that call, I looked around and was like, “Anything that does not make me feel free has to go.” So I called the guy I was dating and very lovingly was like, this is not it [laughs]. I went to the woods, I started meditating heavily. It’s been this obsession for me to try to see what makes me feel free and what doesn’t, including the stuff in my house. I don’t wanna be beholden to a genre of music. Being blond to be a pop star — it was frying my hair. That doesn’t make me feel free. I’m gonna have fucking roots, goddammit. Anything that I feel beholden to, even subconsciously that I’m maybe not even aware of, I’ve started really trying to analyze what feels good and what doesn’t.

So that sounds intense and transformative.
Totally, and a little insane. I’ve been writing so many songs. I feel like I’m making up for a lot of lost time. I feel like I wanna heal as quickly as possible. It’s impossible to go through what I went through and just be like, “That didn’t affect me at all, I’m totally unscathed and completely fine.” So I’m trying to really heal. And I’m doing that in front of the whole world. I’ve kind of done everything in my life in front of the whole world. So I know it’s probably messy at times and there’s a lot of emotions, but I hope that people can just see that I’m trying to be an example. ‘Cause I know I’m not the only person out there that’s gone through something hard.

When you talk about stylistically liberating yourself, I feel like you’ve already done that to an extent.
Well, stylistically, musically — me too.

So what does it mean to do that further?
I made an album with Rick Rubin that was so spiritual and meaningful. At the time, it was so different for me, and I felt like, “Are people gonna like this?” I don’t think certain people were happy I made that record. It was not a pop-banger record. So there was this people-pleasing of like, “Oh, is that all right if I’m doing this?” I can’t wait to just explore. The people-pleasing piece has been something I’ve really been looking at with my freedom — how that has affected my life and my music. I really want to get completely limitless in terms of the sonics, like, what is possible sonically.… Since I was young, it was like, “This is how long a song should be.… Make the bridge iconic and make sure people like it.” And now, I’m kind of like, “Make sure I like it.” What if I make sure people hate it? I don’t know. I just wanna see what is possible.… I might just continue making pop songs ’cause I love pop songs, but I just wanna feel so fucking free.

That’s a great place to be. And it’s an interesting moment to be looking back at the beginning.
I’m really excited to talk about the beginning of all of this, and I didn’t [used to] feel that way. I felt really torn about how to interact with the first couple of albums I put out for a really long time. It was just a really confusing thing to think back about because it was publicly so big. It was my dreams coming true. I’m so grateful. And it was also extremely difficult personally, and very toxic. Some of the nihilism, which I was kind of feeling today, which is why I put glitter on — the nihilism I think came from also not being treated very kindly.

When you’re kind of a punk rocker … I found all my punk friends, we would get fucked up and get tattoos and put crazy makeup on and wear studded jackets. But we were all super sensitive, sweet misfit people that just wanted a place to belong and feel loved and safe, and a place to be ourselves. I think a lot of that shithead, brat energy was actually just like, “If you don’t love me, fuck you. So I’m gonna make myself look crazier and be extra intense about it.” But I think that was a lot of feeling of just not belonging and not feeling very loved and not feeling very cared for. And that’s why I love my Animals. ‘Cause those are my fucking people. My Animals, they get me, they see me, I get them, I see them. They’re my people.

What do you remember about the writing and recording of “Tik Tok” that you can share?
I remember that I was very happy to make music with Benny Blanco. We were both little shitheads. I really enjoyed working with Benny, and we would have a really good time. It was really interesting how the stupider the lyrics got and just the more playful and the less seriously I took it and the less I would think about it — the more it was just, like, you don’t use your brain at all. Like zero. The craziest experience was I kept being like, “It’s just too stupid.” But then I would listen back and be like, “Huh, no, it’s really fun.” So it kind of got me into a bit of a pickle because the biggest song and the first song is what made everyone think that I didn’t use my brain. But for that song, it really served the purpose of trying to make people have a really good time. It really worked.

It fits into the rock & roll tradition, even though it’s pop music, of a really smart person making deliberately dumb writing, deliberately dumb lyrics. There’s a long tradition of that.
Totally. I had to really separate myself from what people thought about me and how I respect myself, because they started becoming intertwined and I started being like, “Am I just really stupid?” And so that had to stop, because I still get “Do you brush your teeth with a bottle of Jack?” Do you know how old that song is? At this point, I don’t care. Bring it on. But there was a period of time where I was like, “Maybe they think I’m a functioning alcoholic that literally brushes my teeth with hard alcohol.” But, like, did you guys really think that?

Did you write those lyrics?
Yeah. But I was having a fun time. I was being a crazy little bitch, like, every day. But you guys thought I did it every day. That’s not great.

It is, for the historical record, something that you have done at least a couple of times in your life.
OK, so one time I did wake up in a bathtub in Vegas. And [a bottle of Jack was] all there was. And I was, like, it’s probably better than nothing. And then that’s where the lyric came from. So, fine. Maybe I deserve it. I see your point. Touché [laughs].

I mean, that’s also a thing, right? A song encapsulates a millisecond in a life. But then if it becomes iconic, then part of you is always gonna be crystallized in that little moment.
I’m so grateful for that silly fucking little song. ‘Cause think of how much dopamine — I’m the dopamine doula to the drunk people on the dance floor. Let that sink in.

I think you said you rerecorded the lyric about “feeling like P. Diddy,” right?
I am not allowed to release it yet. We’re counting down the days. But at my shows, just so everybody knows, the lyrics have officially changed to “Wake up in the morning like, ‘Fuck P. Diddy.’” And that stands for all that I can’t say.

You once told me that the persona on that early music was your actual personality multiplied by six or by 10 or something. Do you remember the earliest formation of that persona, or which songs or which moments you were like, “OK, this is the thing for persona”?
I was like, “I can sing so beautifully. I’m singing my heart out on this other song.” People are like, “No, I like it when you are white-girl rapping.” And I was like, “I don’t know necessarily even how I feel about doing it, but if it’s making you happy” — it was a lot of kind of like, “I really like to make people happy. I love making people dance. I love making people happy for three and a half minutes.” And that’s just what people liked to listen to. I’ve actually kind of wanted to study the psychology behind this because it’s really interesting that a lot of times the songs I spend the least amount of time on and take the least seriously end up being the ones people like the most. 

From the outside, it did seem like you were having fun.
I was having a really good time when I was with my friends, when I was with my fans, and making some of those songs. Recently, I’ve had to kind of go back and reclaim all of those songs, even though I had almost, like, a resentment with the energy of some of them. I went back and really realized that was just me. I love that I was so playful, and I love that I just didn’t give a fuck. And I love that I was so naive about having fun in front of the whole world. I fucking love that. What a fearless bad bitch. I have so much love for her. She had no idea how painful that was gonna be, to be so imperfect in front of the whole world. But what a badass motherfucker. I’m so proud of myself.

With Cannibal, it’s amazing it’s so good because it was recorded in, like, two weeks, right?
You don’t even know! That was in the era of pop stars where they loved to compare inches of our body to each other and tear you to shit and follow you — it was the craziest era. And I remember being on tour, and I never thought I was exceptionally hot, but I didn’t loathe myself in the way that a bad picture could make you. Especially a bad picture on the cover of a magazine.

So then I’m on tour being silly and having fun and I have a cowbell and we’re having a good time, everything’s cool. And then that started happening. I was like, “Whoa. I should hate myself. I think I need to hate myself because, whoa.” And then I was like, “I think I need to break my leg. I think I need to break my leg to stop touring for a minute.” ‘Cause it was just so crazy and I didn’t know how to handle it. And I remember turning to my mom — I wanted the tour to stop, and I was like, “Mom, you might have to break my leg.” And she was like, “No, you just need to sleep.” And I was like, “All right.” And she was right. So she didn’t break my leg, but I only had two weeks to write and record my second album.

So you do consider it your second album, not an EP or anything?
I do, yeah. If we wanna go contractually in the world of contracts and people that weren’t telling me things because it didn’t serve things legally in the universe — whatever it was. It was most definitely my second fucking album.

The one production thing that I think got under your skin is the Auto-Tune stuff. Which made you worried that people would think you couldn’t sing.
Yes. Which is similar to the stupid thing, right? Like we talked about feeling stupid because my first song was so stupid. I don’t mind being stupid as fuck for a whole night, sometimes a whole weekend. Happy to get stupid. And happy to use Auto-Tune. I think it was more the lack of control I had with [creating] a more holistic view of who I was and fearing becoming a caricature of one small aspect of myself that I actually really enjoy. And I love her, and she’s the most fun. But that’s not all of who I am. And I kind of pride myself in being smart and being able to sing. Those are two things I pride myself in in my life.

And for the whole world to think I couldn’t sing and I was stupid — that was hard for me. And I think maybe I shouldn’t have given as much of a fuck as I did, but it’s the whole world. And it’s my whole life. And so that was hard for me, and I just had to let time go on and let my integrity and my choices and my creativity speak for itself. But it did take a while for me to finally feel like people are starting to see me holistically. But, you know, it is what it is.

Also there were really hard moments in this period of time. And then there were the most fun, the most iconic, the most hilarious. I had a food fight backstage at Rock in Rio and I hit, I think, one of the band members from Guns N’ Roses in the eye with a piece of broccoli.

Which one?
I don’t remember. ‘Cause I was throwing it at my friend and she ducked and then it hit him in the face. I think I just scooted. I have “fun” tattooed on my foot from my birthday party ’cause I was having so much fun. I had a lot of fun. And I think that’s part of why it makes me emotional talking about these songs — because there was so much magic and naive, youthful hope. And opportunity and excitement. And, holy shit, who gets to experience that in their life? I’m so lucky. And then there were, sprinkled in, really difficult moments and situations that I really couldn’t talk about.

And so it’s very polarizing emotionally to know how to look at a period of time when it’s two very drastically different emotions. But I think the thing about life is both things can be felt in that time, and I felt both of those emotions, and I still can look back at this period of time and be extremely grateful ’cause it made me who I am.

Any closing thoughts?
I’m just really grateful. I’m really grateful at a really insane time. And I’m grateful for everybody who’s been with me ever since. And I feel like we just got to the really good part, so stay tuned.

Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone’s weekly podcast Rolling Stone Music Now, hosted by Brian Hiatt, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or go here for the podcast provider of your choice. Check out nine years’ worth of episodes in the archive, including in-depth interviews with artists including Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen, Questlove, Halsey, Missy Elliott, Dua Lipa, Neil Young, Snoop Dogg, Brandi Carlile, Phoebe Bridgers, Rick Ross, Alicia Keys, the National, Brian May, Roger Taylor, Ice Cube, Taylor Hawkins, Willow, Keith Richards, Robert Plant, Killer Mike, Julian Casablancas, Sheryl Crow, Johnny Marr, Scott Weiland, Liam Gallagher, Alice Cooper, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis Costello, John Legend, Donald Fagen, Charlie Puth, Phil Collins, Justin Townes Earle, Stephen Malkmus, Sebastian Bach, Tom Petty, Eddie Van Halen, Kelly Clarkson, Pete Townshend, Bob Seger, the Zombies, and Gary Clark Jr. And look for dozens of episodes featuring genre-spanning discussions, debates, and explainers with Rolling Stone’s critics and reporters.

From Rolling Stone US.

The post Kesha Has Learned to Love ‘Tik Tok’: ‘That Was Just Me!’ appeared first on Rolling Stone India.

When São Paulo-based DJ MU540 got the news about his India debut at Lollapalooza 2026, he kept it pretty close to his chest at first. “I was extremely happy, but I didn’t tell anyone until the official announcement came out,” he tells Rolling Stone India. “Then, when everyone saw it, they were all happy for me too. It’s already a huge honor to participate in Lolla here in Brazil. But to be able to represent Brazil at Lolla India? It’s literally expanding my horizons.” 

MU540 (pronounced “MUZAO”) combines Brazilian funk music with genres as far and wide as trap, grime and house. Speaking about these influences, MU540 says, “Since I was little, I’ve enjoyed listening to different types of music and understanding the music scene in each place. This allows me to understand what people are listening to in other countries. I like to research these styles and mix them with funk, to see how our vocals sound on beats that are different from the norm.” 

Despite this musical curiosity, playing with Baile funk like this is not something MU540 takes lightly, and the magnitude of bringing a kind of music so influenced by the Brazilian favelas to other countries is not lost on him. “Taking my music so far and connecting with a new audience shows how special favela music is, and I know that I represent an entire community when I become one of the leading exponents of electronic music and Brazilian funk. In my research, there is a diverse selection of Brazilian music and producers from all over Brazil that I really like.” 

MU540’s musical mélange comes from humble beginnings — particularly FruityLoops and a late 2000s club pop classic. “I started producing at age 14, making some remakes, like Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas.”, explains MU540. “That’s when I began to better understand how the program I was using — FL Studio — worked, exploring timbres, beats and effects. Since then, it has become my main ally in production.” 

From there, MU540 hit the ground running with his 2018 debut album Musica Popular Favelada, Vol. 1, before steadily building up his buzz through numerous EPs, singles and collaborations with fellow Brazilian artists like hip-hop duo Tasha & Tracie and grime artist Fleezus. After creating a fan-favorite track in 2023’s “O Fantastico Mundo de Oakley”, MU540 topped Spotify’s viral chart with the summer jam “Botano” from his 2024 EP 4×4. 

MU540’s latest dance-floor igniter is Dois Quebrada Inteligente — an EP with rapper Kyan and a sequel to their earlier project UM Quebrada Inteligente, a scrapbook of their global explorations and a testament to their friendship. “We wanted to include a lot of our experiences traveling abroad, showing how we got to know the world through our work, something that came about through our friendship, because we are from the same place (the Baixada Santista area of Sao Paulo) and like the same things.” 

In fact, several publications credit MU540 and Kyan with creating a whole new subgenre known as “Frap” (funk + trap), but MU540 assures us that it’s not as serious as it seems. “The Frap thing was just Kyan and I messing around, because we didn’t know how to classify the song, since it had turned out so well. That day, we joked around and ended up nicknaming it ‘Frap 01’. It was just us having fun!” 

For now, MU540 is really excited to visit India, revealing that it is a country that has always sparked his curiosity. “When we think of incredible destinations to visit, India immediately comes to mind because it’s a country that is very rich culturally, full of colors and traditions. I’ve heard some Indian music and really liked it, but now I can’t even remember the names of the songs.” 

As Lollapalooza inches closer and Indian music fans wait to see him in action, MU540 looks forward to doing some cross-cultural analysis through his upcoming performance. “I want to do some research and see if Indians will understand us through the beats — if they won’t sound strange to them. When I listen to some Indian music, I can hear similarities with certain funk rhythms here, and that makes me very curious. I think Indians have a very advanced rhythmic awareness, and I’m sure they’ll pick up on the Brazilian rhythm.” 

The post MU540 Plans to Bring ‘Brazilian Rhythm’ to India Debut  appeared first on Rolling Stone India.

The concept of having a theatrical performance on ice skates is intriguing; the production of the famous story from the 1800s by E.T.A. Thompson had been made into a ballet production with the most beautiful music from Tchaikovsky, immortalising the tale from a long-ago Christmas. It is a wondrous story where a child’s toys come to life and enact a tale.

The Nutcracker has been a classic on the dance (ballet) stage. In this Mumbai production of Nutcracker on Ice, the story unfolds theatrically on ice and is performed by highly skilled skaters at the Grand Theatre, Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC).

We wondered about the task of transporting such a large production to India, the problems with creating and maintaining an ice surface for the duration of the show and other logistics involved. To get some answers to these and to find out what Mumbai audiences should anticipate from the show, Rolling Stone India spoke with director and choreographer Tony Mercer whose troupe, the Imperial Ice Stars, are due to perform Nutcracker On Ice. Excerpts:

Sunil Sampat, Rolling Stone India: Mr. Mercer, we are very pleased about your bringing this production to Mumbai.

Tony Mercer: It is a privilege for us to be going to Mumbai and perform at the NMACC.

We understand that your inspiration for having performances on ice came from your watching the winter Olympics at Sarajevo in 1984. How did this happen?

Absolutely! I watched the incredible achievements of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean which got them the gold medal. I fell in love with the theatricality involved in their feat.

I got excited with the idea of creating theatre on ice. That’s where this journey began.

What were you doing prior to 1984?

I was involved with theater in various roles. For example, I did the lighting for the stage shows of well-known musicians such as Jack Jones, Johnny Mathis, Kool & The Gang and others.

I was constantly involved with one aspect or another of professional theater.

The Nutcracker is a famous and popular ballet production. What is involved in translating it from the ballet format to the performance on ice?

My idea is not to re-create ballet but rather to merge the story with ice skating skills. The great music, The Nutcracker Suite by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, is layered and lyrical and is my inspiration.

My choreography is based on this. Actually, I visualize actions and moves for what I hear.

And how do you merge these concepts?

I create the choreography first and then bring in the theatre aspect.

You must need some high-caliber skaters. How do you source them?

I watch a lot of competitive skating. I have also come across some fine coaches. Ice dance is a genre of its own. For my production, I have to layer this with theatricality. When I find a skating champion, I advise them to forget about the medals they have won and think theater!

How many performers do you have? I suppose there are also understudies.

We have a cast of 50 to 60; of course, we have understudies. In fact, we need to rotate performers in our schedule.

I must say, we have long-term skaters working with us. One has been working for the past 17 years and we also have one star who has been with us since we started in 2004. We have skaters of the highest caliber.

We are wondering about the logistics of creating an ice surface wherever you perform. What does this involve, since stage sizes and shapes and ambient conditions must vary considerably?

Yes, the variations are there and we have to work around them.

We have performed in 31 countries and faced many challenges. In one place, the outside temperature was 48 degrees. Mumbai will be between 31 and 33 degrees. So we adjust.

Our ice has to be maintained between -7 and -8 degrees C.

We have to factor in ambient temperature, size of the audience and how much heat they generate, how well insulated the auditorium might be etc.

How do you achieve this feat of precision?

We have a professional team at work on this. They use chillers and functioning machines for ice making and temperature control.

Are you bringing a live orchestra?

We are not. We need to use the space of the orchestra pit for our ice platform. There is no space for an orchestra.

However the music has been recorded by a 65-piece orchestra and this is what we will be using.

What should our Mumbai audiences expect from Nutcracker On Ice?

This is essentially a Christmas story and has been liked by audiences wherever we have performed. The score from Tchaikovsky is the central part of the production. Your audiences might especially enjoy “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

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London-based sarod artist and composer Soumik Datta is spending about seven months in India this year, more than he ever has before.

Part of a tour called Melodies in Slow Motion, it’s a conscious shift towards performing more in the country, including his recent Travellers set, which just wrapped up with six shows, including the Ziro Festival in September. This time, Datta, who was born in Mumbai, says it feels more like coming home. “When you live in a city like London, you forget that the multicultural-ness of it is amazing, but somewhere underneath all the layers, you’re very aware of not being white.” As soon as he steps off the plane in India, “that suddenly disappears.” He adds, “There’s a sense of ease and freedom.”

These statements could well be motivated by all the anti-immigrant, anti-multicultural rhetoric that’s very much present in countries in the West. It very much emerges in Datta’s concerts with the Travellers, the band he put together after a residency at Mumbai’s G5A earlier this year. Through voice samples that invoke ‘Not My President’ protests against U.S. President Donald Trump to the people of Gaza, to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s A Tryst With Destiny speech about Indian freedom, and scientist Robert Oppenheimer reflecting on his work on the atom bomb, there’s a clear statement in the self-described “ear cinema” of the show.

With Carnatic violinist Sayee Rakshith, tabla artist Debjit Paitundi, and percussionist and mridangam artist Sumesh Narayanan, the band weaves between Carnatic and Western phrases, the combination of rhythms from tabla, cajon and darbuka making it even more global-sounding. In the set, Datta also engages with the bhajan “Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram,” a melody “that stood for empathy and secularism,” which his mother took with her when she moved out of India in 1995.

The Travellers—as well as other projects he’s working on, including one with textile craftspeople in Ahmedabad and the Bengal-inspired Mone Rekho—is a result of an “old-school documentary style” creative approach for Datta. “I wasn’t really working like this before in India. A lot of my work is in the West, and when I come here, it’s more about like watching other people’s shows, going to see what is being presented in India,” he says.

Around three years ago, Datta was sparked into making the Travellers set, upon being asked “what are you interested in?” by a friend. “I think I said I was interested in storytelling, and in playing my instrument in a context that I felt was true. They were like, ‘Okay, so can you do those things through audio?’ It’s took me a long time for that to land,” he adds.

As he built a bank of sound clips and music that he was inspired by, Datta began to understand the powerful and transportive nature of audio. In June at G5A in Mumbai, he got to expand on the audio design, presenting two shows and conducting workshops.

It led to questions about the privilege that musicians have of “being included” and the common thread of musicians all having instruments they travel with, regardless of whether they’re in an orchestra or in an indie band. From grouses about traveling with instruments, Datta and his group got to talking about immigration. “We started talking about, ‘Why are you here?’ In some ways, it’s because your instrument is your passport to see the world,” he says. It formed the core idea of the Travellers set.

There are times when the sonic metaphors take over, like in a piece where Rakshith and Narayanan are playing raga Surutti and Datta is playing raga Gorakh Kalyan. “There are lots of lovely similarities, but there are tensions and differences as well. I guess Sayee [Rakshith] is the migrant in that way, because I continue to stay in Gorakh Kalyan, and he starts in Surutti and shifts over very slowly to another raga called Andolika, which is closer to Gorakh Kalyan. Towards the end, he’s pretty much with me. So there is this sense of musical assimilation to reflect how a migrant might, over years, have to shift and change their personality,” Datta explains.

There’s another Travellers show at London Jazz Festival on Nov. 23 and then Datta heads to Singapore for a show with Paitundi for Mone Rekho on Nov. 28 in Singapore. More shows with the Travellers are in the works as well, in concert halls but also “very unusual spaces.” Datta notes, [Spaces] where you can blur the line more between performer and audience.”  

In tandem, Datta is working on more subject matter that can intertwine with music to push audiences into thought and hopefully, action too. He’s working with juvenile detention centers for music workshops and performances, and a multi-city workshop about the impact of air pollution explored through field recordings and music. It will spawn an album as well but also a new live production in April 2026 that should take shape by the time this current tour ends. He says, “It’s really a climate piece, and it’s about interconnection. Everything needs air to be able to function and live. The production will then go on after that to tour in schools and become a sort of tool for teachers and parents to discuss interconnection and the environment with children.”

The post Soumik Datta is Spending More Time in India and Engaging With Local Artists appeared first on Rolling Stone India.

The way Mumbai artist Spryk, aka Tejas Nair, sees it, most AI-generated visuals feel like an illusion and perhaps, even like magic.

He explains, “It looks mind-blowing at first, but if you pay closer attention, you can start seeing the gaps clearly.” It made him deep dive into street magic and its history in India, with his research leading him to create a new audio-visual show called Neural Natak, which debuts at the British Council’s Creative Convergence gathering in Bengaluru on Nov. 6, 2025.

In development for about a year now, the conceptual show only picked up steam in the last four to six months. It will now play out at the Bangalore International Centre as an audio-visual performance that reimagines generative AI as a present-day street magician. He says about the inspiration, “Outputs from AI today, to me, feel a bit like it’s replicating these magicians. Executing movements faster than the eye can see at its first glance, or grand gestures carefully planned to shock and awe, and visual trickery that blows your mind, making you believe that anything is possible.”

Spryk — whose 2024 EP Afterglow explored the intersection of human emotion and artificial intelligence— says he’s been experimenting with Gen AI systems for a couple of years now, finding the way that neural networks work “quite fascinating.” He adds, “I think so much of modern AI is being designed and trained to closely emulate human behavior. However, what makes human creativity unique is not just knowledge but lived experiences. The emotional depth that we feel and can create through the things we make just can’t be felt by a machine. That is the essence that inspired this project.”

The 50-minute Neural Natak show, which unfolds as a short film with a complementary soundtrack, is created from a mix of “traditional and cutting-edge processes,” according to the artist. In addition to working with go-to visual collaborator EyeAmSid, the visual identity and branding comes from artist Madhav Nair aka Deadtheduck, who has made a series of illustrations and typography to tie the entire project together. From Adobe Premiere Pro for sequencing and visual modules to Touch Designer, Spryk says they’ve used tools like Nano Banana and Higgsfield Soul, along with open-source models like Wan, and newer, more commercial models like Veo 3.1 by Google & Sora 2 by OpenAI for image and video generation. “We’ve sourced and curated openly available archival footage and broken the show into five parts that tell the whole story,” he adds.

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There’s been a deliberate inclination towards older models of Gen AI, the artist says. “They just seem to have more machine memory-like characteristics,” he explains.

For the music, Spryk will be on stage to trigger, effect, loop, chop, and remix elements throughout the show. Always a roving mind when it comes to genres, Neural Natak will bring in varied sounds that don’t conform to any particular genre. “Individual compositions could fall under several genres of electronic music featuring strong motifs of Indian classical and folk music,” he says.

It’s given him a chance to add elements that never made it to a Spryk show before. “The show has a unique soundtrack in that, unlike my previous shows, this one also features character voiceovers, narration, and lots of foley sounds,” he says. He’s played the high-energy sets at festivals like Lollapalooza India earlier this year, but he’s aware that this is a different room altogether. “The fact that this show was made for an auditorium with a captive and seated audience allows for it to be structured very differently and also lets me play a lot with silence,” he adds.

Though it’s meant to be more of a live show experience, the music from the project might be released as tracks or an EP. The guiding idea has been the concept of “techno-magic” in Neural Natak. “That refers to when technology behaves like magic. With that in mind, the sound for this project also has a mix of industrial sounds along with lighter, more ephemeral ‘magic’-like elements,” Spryk says.

At the core of it, Spryk treats Neural Natak as another step in his “restless hunger to learn and experiment” and not get too comfortable. It’s been important for him as an artist to explore new technology at a time when “technological progress has always rushed in faster than we can envision or prepare.” He adds, “A lot of it is messy and controversial, so I think it’s important that we actually engage more directly – and hopefully that helps structure new creative tools in a more responsible way.”

With this first show now developed and ready to go, Spryk says he’s in conversations with venues across India and the world to further evolve Neural Natak. That might also involve collaborations with the street performance community. He says, “[We’re looking to] traditional puppet artists, magicians, and folk performers to evolve this into something larger — potentially a touring production or even a festival commission.”

Register to watch Spryk’s ‘Neural Natak’ show at the British Council presents Creative Convergence 2025 here.

The post Spryk’s AI Experiments Have Birthed Neural Natak, a ‘Techno-Magic’ Show appeared first on Rolling Stone India.

Despite the request from British artist Steven Wilson at his Mumbai show on Nov. 3, 2025 that fans should refrain from recording the concert, it was a phones-out moment when sitarist-composer Purbayan Chatterjee was called on stage to jam on “Voyage 34,” a seminal psychedelic jam from Porcupine Tree.

The lights even turned all blue, red, and white, in a possible nod to the 2004 re-issue artwork. On stage, the energy was at an all-time high for what the sitarist calls a trip in progress. “It was a transformative experience for me as a musician, just being on stage. The Mumbai audience made it magic for me,” Chatterjee says over a phone call.

It was in June this year that a video of sitarist-composer Purbayan Chatterjee jamming with prog band Dream Theater’s keyboardist and composer-producer Jordan Rudess did the rounds on social media. The sitarist surmises that Wilson and his team perhaps saw that video and reached out to him about a possible guest appearance during his The Overview Tour India 2025. “They were trying to take me [on the entire tour] but the dates didn’t match, as I was also supposed to go to Azerbaijan,” he says.

Familiar with Wilson’s solo work as well as Porcupine Tree’s discography, Chatterjee had some reservations considering they weren’t going to have a chance to rehearse the songs. While on tour in the U.S., he received “Voyage 34” and was asked to play sitar over it and send it back to Wilson. “I recorded something from Houston and sent it to him. And he said, ‘Wow, this is going amazing.’ I played on a lot of the song. and I thought that he will say, ‘Oh no, no, you had these 16 bars here.’ But to my surprise, he said we’ll keep all of it and I’d play throughout the song,” Chatterjee recalls. They finally met on stage during soundcheck, and the sitarist says it was “magic from the get-go.”

Following the on-stage collaboration, there might be more in the works between the artists. “He [Wilson] reached out to my manager yesterday, and he said he would like to keep in touch. I’m actually going to be in the U.K. in February, so let me see if I can hang out with him and figure some stuff.”

In addition to Wilson, Chatterjee is also working with Rudess on material. “We are constantly in touch, and we are working on songs together. We also share a passion for technology and apps,” he says.

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We remind Chatterjee that Dream Theater are back in India in January 2026 with shows in Bengaluru and Kolkata. Asked if we might see another on-stage collaboration, Chatterjee laughs and says, “I don’t know, they haven’t asked yet.”

In December 2023, the sitarist made a similar star appearance, called on by fusion band Snarky Puppy to add a solo to their song “Lingus” in Mumbai. While he’s collaborated with bandleader Michael League on his album Unbounded (Abaad) in 2021, this jam led to an upcoming album with guitarist Mark Lettieri. “We’re coming out with an album called Feathered Creatures. I think the first single will drop in April, as things are planned now. So we’re taking that on the road and touring, and that’s in the electronic production space,” Chatterjee says.

There are also plans to set up a second home in New York and work with more musicians from around the world, with Chatterjee hoping to express himself as a “contemporary individual,” drawing from Indian classical music as well as other forms. He adds, “Music cannot become an anachronistic thing, fossilized with no relevance. We have to keep it relevant. We have to keep it very interactive. We have to keep it very conversational. It’s very important to do that.”

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