Carnatic Music as American “hip-hop”

My very good old friend GMD (name withheld) who lives in America sent me the following messages on WhatsApp this morning:

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[02/10/2021, 7:14:19 AM] Talking about music, here is a backstory about a brilliant young man whose name is Emani (name withheld) . An MIT graduate. I dont remember how, but he got in touch with me sometime around 2016 or so and spoke about his vision to start an Indian Music portal designed to bring together people interested in Indian Classical music of all genres…He said he was visiting Chicago where he was hosting an event and was looking for sponsors to host him and/or invest about $25K is his venture as seed capital. I likes the idea and committed to hosting him at my house for a week and loaned him my car to carry on his activities. The minimum tranche he was looking for was $25K. I had just started my own venture and could not commit to him. So, i explained to him that however much i loved his idea and would invest i was constrained because of my commitment to My company. Now look, i am where i am. And see where he is.

His portal is IndianRaga.Com. Listen to this YouTube video below :

YouTube

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Then my good friend went on to message me furthermore on this :

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“This is one of the fusion style ones. Most of these talented kids are in the US and are prepping for Medical, Law or CPA ptofessions. 🖖

I met a few of these kids. Very very impressed with them and also the parents who while giving these kids the freedom also made them realize the richness of their culture and traditions.

I had asked Emani about puritanism (sic) (purity) in classical music and he said, “If i need to get youngsters interested, i need to make it appealing to them without compromising the essence of the original.”

Check out http://www.indianraga.com. The best way to continue interest in our classical music.

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After reading the messages of my American friend (of India origin) , I did not know how to respond. I did not want him to think of me as being a die-hard purist of Carnatic music. At the same time , I did want him to know that his enthusiasm for what kids in the USA go around doing with Carnatic music is a tad misplaced since it is anything but honest effort to preserve and nurture a traditional system of classical music from ancient South India. So here below is how I tried to gingerly reply to him without hurting him :

Dear Gummudi, 😃😀…. It’s so thrilling ! …. And cheap too !

I don’t want to sound like as though I’m an old grumpy sourpuss …. but while this is certainly very entertaining and it is youthful experimentation with an age old classical musical tradition of south India , it’s very difficult to say that this is the best way to nurture it in America…

There is no harm at all in letting kids give full rein to their creative artistic hyper-energy … it’s certainly good for them .

But to characterise their antics such as this in the video as “appealing … without compromising the essence of the original” is a very tall, unacceptable claim. It’s actually nonsense.

By all means do have your fun, kids … turn Carnatic music into hip hop in America if you like that and have to do it to make it appealing to the masses … America is a free country, after all! No issues at all … but please, please don’t go around mocking Carnatic music by saying that this new avatar of it that you’ve invented is authentic improvisation of the “richness of your culture”. Far from it! It’s actually just a travesty of it … an exuberant, lively and youthful one but nonetheless still a travesty. 🙏

Sudarshan Madabushi