Grammy Award Winning Music Composer Ricky Kej Speaks To Supriya Samuel Of The Luxury Collection

My Ears were More Important than My Eyes

- Supriya Samuel

It was on February 8th, 2015, that the world got to experience the brilliance of one of the youngest Indian music composers, Ricky Kej as he created history by winning the award for the best new age album, ‘Winds of Samsara’ at the 57th Grammy Awards. I recall waking up the next morning to find the front pages of all the newspapers in my house flooded with pictures of Kej. My musical instinct kicked in and made me immediately Google the artist and listen to his album. As I listened to the first song in the album I first thought it sounded like a very clear genre of fusion. But as the album kept on playing one song after another, the magic kept unraveling, revealing an amalgamation of different cultural influences and sounds. A rendition so clear that I couldn’t stop listening.

2 years later, and I found myself sitting in front of the man himself at his very own studio, speaking to him about all that he has experienced as a music composer both before and after winning the Grammy.

Speaking of his early life and his introduction to music, Ricky Kej fondly remembers watching Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan live, “I was 12 years old and watching him was an eye opening experience at that age. The kind of emotion he would bring to his music and his voice were both incredible. It was almost a spiritual and divine experience where it felt like I was being transported to a completely different world.” It was after watching Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan that Kej became more convinced that music was his calling.

As a child, Ricky was always fascinated with sound, “My ears were more important than my eyes,” he says. “While my classmates were more interested in watching cartoons and television, I was more inclined to my music system and the cassette collection I took immense pride in.”