Kailash Kher, Singer, on why Sufi music is not limited to a particular audience.

Kailash Kher, Singer, on why Sufi music is not limited to a particular audience.

in City Supplements, Bombay Times, January 4, 2006

You are known essentially as a Sufi singer. Does that alienate your kind of music?

Sufi music can be hugely popular, as Toota toota ek parinda proved to everyone. And if Sufi music is mixed with international sound, it can have quite a global appeal.

In my concerts abroad, the foreigners in the audience really enjoy the sound as it's exotic and very different from the run-of-themill music that plays all over.

Sufi music has a philoso phy behind it, so by going pop does the meaning get lost somewhere?

The philosophy of Sufi music is very easy to understand and the more pop you go with it, the better its chances of reaching out to the masses. Sufi music is about life, affinity, love, reality and the ultimate search for God.

But does Sufi music have to fall prey to the packag ing syndrome of music?

In this day and age, packaging of music is very important. So, for my new album Kailasa, for which I've composed, written and sung extensively, I've opted for music videos that add that extra visual appeal and pull in listeners. There will be three music videos for my album, one of which will be shot in Egypt as the visual treatment needed for a particular song in that album has special sound.

With so much music in the market, one really needs to make a mark and that can happen only by doing something different every time.

So, will there be out-andout Sufi music in your forthcoming album?

There is a confluence of varied sounds, ranging club music, lounge feel, country music to eclectic variations from the world over. But Sufi music is the vital element in the album.