MARY ANN ALEXANDER IS PLOTTING HER NEXT HIT, BUT ON HER OWN TERMS

The R&B diva courts viral fame with unreleased song snippets

- ANURAG TAGAT

When Mary Ann Alexander was still in college studying visual communication in Bengaluru, seasoned guitarist-producer Sanjeev T reached out to her for his song “Take My Life With You” from his lo-fi project Future. They were on a serene hill outside of the city shooting the music video when the producer played her the full version of the track, revealing that the second verse features star R&B, Carnatic and film singer Sid Sriram.

Alexander recalls over a Zoom video call, “First of all, he only told me when we're shooting. I'm like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ There’s this part where Sid comes in harmonizing and ad-libbing over me and then he starts singing. For me to hear both of our voices at the same time was surreal.”

A fan of Sriram’s, the Thiruvananthapuram-raised, Bengaluru-based singer-songwriter says the bluesy “Adiye” (from 2012 Tamil movie Kadal, composed by A.R. Rahman) is her go-to song for most occasions, from soundchecks to close gatherings to intimate gigs. “Day before yesterday was my friend's birthday and they asked me to sing, and I sang ‘Adiye.’ It was one of the songs that made me realize how much I like R&B and blues because of the style. I would sing it and feel like, ‘This is what I want to do,” she recounts.

BORN INTO MUSIC: Alexander’s father is a seasoned voice in the Malayalam music industry and took her along to recording sessions right from when she was five years old, while her mother held down an office job. Whenever there was a part in the songs that needed a child’s voice, she got a chance to record, starting out as a studio artist as early as seven years old. “Just standing still, singing correctly, delivering everything right, felt natural for me,” she adds.