Monday November 30, 2009
Feel the G-force
By NANTHA KUMAR
One elder statesman in the Malaysian Indian music scene is ramping up the stakes with his debut solo album.
IN the last three years, homemade Indian music finally took that great leap to seize the attention of the film industry in India and stake its own quarter in a notoriously difficult scene. Rapper Yogi B headed the initial breakthrough in the movie, Polladhavaan (Bad Hat, 2007), with a remix of a late 1970s soundtrack classic, Engaiyum Eppothum (Anywhere, Anytime).
An avalanche of interest in other music composers, singers and collaborations from Malaysia followed swiftly. The demand for our musicians to sing and write for Tamil and Telugu movies in India rose.
Peace: Guna’s debut solo album, Mr G – Mannan, is expected in early January. Standing out in this sea of young faces to rock the shores of south India is an old hand.
Guna, formerly of Tamil pop group Lock-Up, is broadly regarded as one of the better singers in the scene and a trailblazer in the birth of the Malaysian Indian music industry in the mid-1990s. Since leaving the pop outfit about four-and-half-years ago, Guna (real name Kunalan Kunaseelan) has reinvented himself as a raggamuffin advocate, Mr G.
The rebranding resulted in a number of collaborations with Malaysia’s entertainment names (Yogi B, Dr Burn, Sasi the Don, etc).
With a career built on pop, rock and hip hop, Guna, in his late 30s, is also one of the most-sought after Tamil vocalists in town for such ventures. There was a dread, in his post-Lock-Up years, that a singer as versatile as Guna was doomed to be just that: a guest singer in albums. His regularly stated desire to cut an album was all work and no progress until the gigs in India realised his longstanding ambition.
“I still remember selling 2,000 units (of Lock-Up’s self-titled debut album) at St Anne’s Feast Day (in Penang) and it was a huge blast-off in 1996. Lock-Up then ran its course and it was time to move on. In the later years, I had calls and e-mails to do a solo project – especially after the successes I had making songs with the younger musicians,” explained Guna in a recent interview in Kuala Lumpur.
“There were financial considerations and a lot of creative work that would come with such a project.”
Guna delayed his solo project until he was ready with the material and could commit time to the album.
“My profile has rose after my work with Harris Jeyaraj (prominent composer from India in the movie Dham Dhoom) and I was more recognised in India. After a few missed opportunities, a breakthrough was achieved through a song in that movie last year. I had a couple of other opportunities to contribute vocals to soundtrack albums in India ... but singing for films is not the be-all and end-all of our career.”
The mission is to get local Indian musicians more crossover opportunities and exposure here.
“I’d like to walk down the street and be recognised by Malay and Chinese people as a singer ... we haven’t progressed up to that level. Even though we have been featured in films from India, we need more recognition around here. Chinese musicians here have to go to Taiwan and make their name and then move on to the international stage. That’s what I think we need to do: use India as a platform to reach the world,” he reckoned.
Guna’s debut in Mr G – Mannan (Mr G – King), which is expected in early January, has been gradually announced through online media and social networking sites.
His Facebook account has been garnering feedback for the songs that have been made available on the Internet.
In the 1990s, it used to be pubs and carnivals to get the word-of-mouth going, and Guna has paid his dues with that sort of grassroots promotions. These days, he receives encouragement and fan support online from places like Madras to Dubai and London.
As much as Guna is pleased with the online exposure available now – as opposed to a decade ago – he is also concerned about illegal downloading.
“We put in a lot of effort to grow the industry and to take it to the international level. Illegal downloading is the biggest problem now, but with a good product, I’m confident the fans will buy the original album.”
Two singles — Honey Girl and Satisfaction — have preceded the album release. They are Tamil tracks with English verses thrown in.
Through planned concerts and fan meetings in major towns, Guna and his management aim to build greater rapport with the masses to ensure that the forthcoming album generates hype and fan loyalty.
JS Ragas is the local company releasing this album. Guna is aware that CDs – even in such an extraneous market – are still marketable. He, quite correctly, believes that soundtrack songs have transient quality and that a singer is only as good as his last song. The endeavour pumped into producing an album helps make a statement – whether in musical or personal terms – which songs from films rarely do.
As he stressed, the soundtrack album arena in India is, nevertheless, important to local musicians. A misstep in this newfound market is all that is needed for local musicians to lose ground to their competitors.
“You need to work hard to get another song (as a playback singer) but at the same time, we must be selective in our choices. We can’t take any offer that comes around so as to appear on the silver screen ... that cheapens your worth. When Malaysian Indian music found its voice in the mid-1990s, the musicians did not have the platform to showcase our talent.
“The younger musicians have that platform (now) and have bridged the music gap between India and Malaysia. But they have to do it properly and professionally ... we must be serious about music. Music is a gift and we must protect and promote it. This is the only way to upgrade the standards of the musician’s life and set an inspirational example for the next generation of music-makers,” he concluded.
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