The New Voices of EDM

The general perception of EDM has gone way beyond “just pressing a few keys” and “being loud”. While we are all familiar with the distinctly Indian swanky tunes of Nucleya and the high-on-energy beats of Zaeden, these upcoming voices in the Indian EDM scene might have flown under your radar

- Nilesh Goswami

DJ KIMERA

From overcoming a life-threatening injury to being rejected by 13 music labels, life hasn’t been easy for Pratham Mehra, a 21-year-old DJ who goes by the name of DJ Kimera. His latest single Fight for Ya, which has over 18,000 streams on Spotify, was released on Generation Smash, a label by world-renowned DJs Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike. Pratham has over 1,70,000+ streams on Soundcloud currently.

What inspired you to make music?

Music was never a part of my plan. I was so much into sports. Like most of the Indian kids growing up, my love for cricket was on another level, and I always wanted to be a cricketer. I injured the left side of my lower back once, and I was advised to stay on bed for almost like six months. For six months, I was just on bed. I couldn’t get up to walk freely; it was just that bad. So, during that period, something just caught my attention. I have a faint memory of Ultra 2014. I was just watching one of these sets by Martin Garrix and Hardwell, and it was just inspiring, because these were young guys just playing out their music. Then I landed myself on FL Studio and started messing around. I used to play the keyboard when I was very young, so that also came in hand.

ASHWIN SRIRAM