MUMBAI: “Kingdom” is the story of liberation and a young Goddess finding her power and the first collaboration between Surrey, Canada based producer Khanvict and Australian singer Amritha Shakti. This call to arms is the result of COVID-era online collaboration born out of a one-time meeting at a music festival in New York in the fall of 2019. A brief conversation turned into a months-long exploration of ideas on the internet - culminating in a demo of ‘Kingdom’ in the spring of 2020. Sung in Amritha’s native language Tamil.
Surrey based Asad Khan, better known by his stage name Khanvict, has built his name around a sound that seamlessly blends the eastern influences of Bollywood and Punjabi music with a signature West Coast bass music punch. An immigrant from Pakistan who arrived in Canada in his early teens, Khanvict found purpose in the ultra-competitive world of South Asian dance parties, quickly becoming one of the most in-demand DJs in the scene. In 2017, spurred by experiences at West Coast festivals like Shambhala, Khanvict began to take inspiration from the likes of Troyboi, Clozee and Indian artists like Nucleya.
Amritha Shakti is a soul and RnB singer-songwriter, with a passion for fusing her heritage into her music. Dabbling in South Indian classical and semi-classical music since the age of four, her voice glides between tenderness and grit to convey empowering messages of self-love, spirituality and social change. Her influences range from Norah Jones, Amy Winehouse and Erykah Badu, through to global music icons such as AR Rahman from India. This is Amritha's first fully Tamizh track and her first collaboration with Khanvict.
Watch here:
How did you both meet?
Khanvict: We met at popshift sessions music festival last year in NYC. I heard Amritha singing during her soundcheck and I instantly told one of the organizers to introduce us afterwards - we connected there and I expressed that I'd love to do a song with her at some point.
Amritha: We met at Sessions last year in NYC. I was visiting from Australia originally only for 2 weeks - but after I got to New York and started meeting people in the creative scene, my mind was absolutely blown and I kept extending my trip. I eventually stayed on in NYC for 6 weeks and in the last week before I flew out of New York, we had our Sessions performance. I met Asad at that event, and honestly remember being transfixed while watching him on set - the visuals, the audio, the experience - I'd never seen anything like it! So it's honestly an absolute PLEASURE (and a bit surreal) to be able to collaborate with him a year on!
How did this collaboration come about?
Khanvict: A few months after popshift I sent Amritha a rough sketch of the beat and asked if she was vibin' with it - she came up with the lyrics and sent over some vocals. it took me a while to figure out an arrangement I liked but both of us felt that the hook was catchy and quite strong so we worked hard on finishing it off from there.
Amritha: I think we were going back and forth with a couple of beats - Asad had sent me this beat and I remember feeling a bit stuck when initially trying to adlib a melody on it. The melody literally popped into my head as I was napping one day and I was obsessed with it immediately - I remember us both agreeing that it had a really cool AR Rahman in the 90s vibe - honestly the beat was so powerful that it brought out a lot of inspiration in me creatively and then being able to work on it collaboratively with Asad just felt incredible.
What was the inspiration and meaning behind the song/lyrics?
Amritha: Coming from a Tamil background, I've noticed that we rarely ever see powerful female voices or tracks - I'm talking womxn who channel Rajni, who sing about success and strength and power. We often only hear women sing in really high-pitched voices (not that there's anything wrong with that) about topics like love - and they almost always take on the position of the "admired", the object or the passive voice. I wanted to flip that completely on its head. I wanted this to tell a powerful story. I've grown up even in Australia watching Rajni movies, most of the Tamil community are massive Rajni fans - so I figured, why not channel his energy in this song and write a powerful song for womxn? Like a female Rajni. I love how it turned out, I personally find it so energising and empowering. When I heard the beat, I immediately saw visuals of the jungle in my head, so I imagined a scenario of a fiery warrior Queen returning after many years away. She soars back into the jungle and roars - "Watch me arrive, I'm like a tiger, step aside". The entire song channels that vibe both lyrically and vocally as well. The second thing here is that this is my first fully Tamil song, and I really wanted to step outside of my comfort zone and pay homage to the language - Tamil is underrepresented in the South Asian and the global music scene and I really wanted to celebrate it through this song. I'm hoping Tamil womxn and beyond find this song really powerful!
What was the creative and collaborative process like?
Khanvict: We went back and forth a lot, i really admired that Amritha didn't mind doing take after take until we got it right. Tarun and James wrote the guitar riff that I think really completed the track. I went back to Amritha countless times for more adlibs, harmonies etc until we really dialed it in. I then worked on the detail sections, the 'candy', flute samples etc and the delays combined with a bouncier b-section - this is one of my favourite tracks I've made so far!
Amritha: I LOVED the process - I could sense that Asad had a strong vision for the song and I fully trusted that vision. So, we had a lot of takes and back and forth to really get us there, but I enjoyed every minute of it. I think we were both really inspired by the track and we both wanted the best for it, and importantly the collaboration was fun - I think the process of making music is as important as the final track, and I know I thoroughly enjoyed the process. On a side note, it's super cool to think that we did this all remotely!