Khalbali Records director Devanshu Singh: 'Visualised 40 songs in first season but had to stop at 22'

Presenting a story on the politics of the music industry, Khalbali Records director paints a poetic picture of bringing together multiple sounds of India to create 22-song soundtrack

When Devanshu Singh was approached for Khalbali Records, the filmmaker saw in it an opportunity to not only explore profound questions around art and artistes, but also entertain one of his favourite passions—music. The JioCinema series that revolves around the politics of the music industry has an original soundtrack comprising 22 songs. “In my head, I visualised 40 songs in the first season. But, among other reasons, there were budget constraints. So, we stopped at 22. I am a huge music buff, and got the chance to make a show around it. I didn’t want to shy away from creating music. Growing up, I learned music first and filmmaking later. Music is the purest art form. All art forms aspire to become music,” he poetically shares of the Ram Kapoor-starrer.

While Singh initially wanted Amit Trivedi to create the entire album, he was unable to provide the ace composer the stipulated time he required to fulfil the task. Trivedi, says Singh, required two-and-a-half years to do the job. “It was a fair ask, but I had only eight months. So, I told him, why don’t you become the voice of [the character], Mauj? Mauj is the artiste who wants to create an independent label and help other artistes. He is the inspiration behind the show. So, then he created six songs in the Hindi, Punjabi, Kashmiri and English languages,” shares the director, who then got various independent artistes to work on the rest of the album. 

“Amit has immense respect for artistes across the country, and fusion is his jam. So, he worked with these musicians on their songs as well. In this album, we have a singer from Srinagar, because I wanted Kashmiri sounds in the album. I absolutely love that sound. There’s a Punjabi hip-hop artiste who has written a romantic song for Amit. Another artiste, Priya Malik, who does spoken poetry, has written a song about sexual harassment. That’s the closest to my heart. We have tried to colour the album with different palettes, and Azadi Records has played a big role in that. They worked closely with me to [make] these songs.” 

Curating the album meant Singh went through long musical sessions each day. “We tried old-school [methods]. I had the lyrics written first, because I didn’t want the first-time lyricists we were working with to get affected by the melody. If they did, they’d end up forcefully writing lines to fit it. This is what, unfortunately, often happens today. It was an enriching experience.”

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