'I don't buy into my own hype'

Singer-composer Sid Sriram looks back at his 12-year-long career, his Coachella experience, being a part of Virat Kohli’s playlist, shift in his perspective since the pandemic, and more

- NARAYANI M

SID Sriram loves to interact, so much so that his eloquence translates to musical melodies that have entertained audiences for 12 years since his debut with the AR Rahman number, ‘Adiye’.

And before he knew it, he was singing over 40 songs a year, with 2019 being the busiest of them all. That year also saw the debut of his independent album, Entropy. Soon, things took an unexpected and dramatic change. With that, the singer-composer underwent a tough journey to acclimatise himself with a word that he rarely experienced in his life silence. “I was constantly on the move, composing for Vaanam Kottattum, performing, with plans of a world tour in 2020, and more. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was running on a near-empty tank,” he shares. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it gave him the time and silence to go on a journey of self-introspection and reflection. “I really enjoyed the acclaim and the attention, but I’d wake up with thoughts of ‘What am I doing?’ That made me return to my Carnatic music roots, and I practiced without any particular reason because we didn’t know if and when we were going to perform again. This was liberating and made me fall back in love with the art,” he reveals.