MUMBAI: Shayan Italia, is an India-born British pianist, singer and songwriter who recently released his second video, ‘Sha La La’, a ‘Hinglish’ (Hindi and English) single with 21 artists globally, to drive the message ‘love without boundaries’. “I’ve never looked at the world by country, religion, caste or culture. There are no borders for me in creativity,” explains Shayan. The song received rave reviews and Shayan explains the concept of Sha La La, "I had my mother and father for a very short time in my life before they both passed away when I was just a boy. In that time certain lessons and ideologies were taught which mattered, more so MADE SENSE. And that was to treat people equally, be it a house worker, or a billionaire. So yes, to say “LOVE. WITHOUT BOUNDARIES”, the message of the song Sha La La; this is something I do swear by in real life as I feel it is everyone’s right to love whom they wish to and how they wish to and it’s no one else’s business with regards to the same."

Music definitely has healing powers and Shayan swears the same, he says, "Music has always been therapeutic for anyone, inside or outside of COVID-19. It has the power to heal on many different levels, to bring joy and sadness, to bring light and darkness. Music is the most powerful creative medium there is. It’s short, and one tends to hear a typical piece of music they like many hundreds of times in their lifetimes to get fully acquainted with every part of it. Mental health is the most important state of wellness there can be. If you are mentally sound, you can survive anything and a lot of people have resorted to music to “take them away” from the state of “change” in the world that has happened over the course of the last 12 months or so. Many videos featuring choirs constructed from people in their homes have been made. Many at home have started to learn, or revived their love for an instrument to play, and many have simply bonded over great music, that which time, perhaps they didn’t have sans the lockdown to pay heed to. Many have even resorted to MUSIC THERAPY professionally to get through these difficult times."

With everything going digital, social media platforms have garnered the potential to replace live music in some form or the other. Shayan thinks this may be the inevitability, as he sayd, "Like some of the biggest movies now streaming live on OTT platforms (Wonder Woman 1984 releases the same day, Dec 25th 2020, on HBO MAX as well as in theatres across the world, where allowed to be screened), live music will perhaps migrate to DIGITAL, at least a part of it. So far they tried a couple of concerts live from people’s homes during COVID-19, with the biggest of stars, but I don’t think it was as IMPACTFUL as it should have been. The problem is, will people pay top dollar to watch a concert interactively from their favourite artist, or will they expect the content to be free? If the music industry can devise a robust financial model for online concert streaming, then yes this could be a possibility in the very near future – at least to get things going."

The musician, for the last 2 years has been working on a flagship wellness app that launches in the first half of 2021 as it’s in the last stages of development. The wellness app aims to help a lot of people the world over.