Ricky Kej says all genre definitions and boundaries have been defined by the west

While Grammy-winning musician Ricky Kej has been innovating through the pandemic, he tells us that this phase has been confusing, challenging and rather taxing. He tells us more on a video chat:

How have the last year and a half been for you?
In 2019, I was part of 70 concerts held in over 13 countries. After that the onset of the pandemic, it has been all about staying home. It has been close to 16-17 months. The first wave of the pandemic was already devastating. The second wave was even worse because everyone had this false notion that things are getting back to normal and we musicians too thought we would probably get to doing live concerts.

You have, however, managed to keep yourself busy.
Yes, but it is still very confusing. I began with online concerts. I did three very big concerts that I am proud of - one was for The

Times of India

and the other two were for the WHO and UNICEF. But by around August and September 2020, I realised there was a bit of fatigue among both performers and the audience regarding online concerts. One cannot really compare the experience of an actual live concert with that of a live concert being streamed online due to poor audio and video quality or any other technical shortfalls. That was when I decided to only focus on creating high quality content.

Content creation involved collaborations for you. Was that easy?
My album

Divine Tides

is a collaboration with the rock legend Stewart Copeland who was the drummer of the band The Police. I have been a life-long fan of his, so it was a huge opportunity for me to collaborate with him. In this album,

Himalayas

is a song which is dedicated to the great mountain range. It is said that every single individual directly or indirectly is completely dependent on the Himalayas for their sustenance. I am so glad that we could film the video there.

How do these collaborations work, how do you figure out who you can work with?
My collaborations happen during my travels. For example, if I am playing at a festival in Finland, I get to meet the other bands and jam with them. This is how we make good interpersonal connections. Watching other musicians’ performance on the television or online does not have this profound effect that it has when one is watching them live in person.

What are your thoughts on being bracketed under that bigger umbrella of world music as a genre?
All the genre definitions and boundaries have been created by the west at the end of the day. For instance, when you talk about folk music, it has a different meaning in India. But, in a country like America, it means Bob Dylan or Pete Seeger; basically, musicians who have a poetic way of singing. So, when they have to define any other musical form, it is put under an umbrella called world music. This is how the west perceives things right. Hopefully, it will change in time. For instance, if we look at classical music, Indian classical music forms pre-date the western classical music. So technically, Oriental music should be called classical music and the European forms should be called neo classical, if we were to look at the true nomenclature. But that isn't the way it is as it is the west that has defined these forms of music. Now, people are understanding that the world is bigger than the west and I hope that it happens soon.