RISHI ROY SINGS ABOUT THINGS MOST PEOPLE WANT TO HIDE

This indie artist started alone in his room, now his songs are someone else’s safe space

- MANASVI POTE

There’s something about being a misfit that makes you listen to music differently. For Rishi Roy, music wasn’t a hobby or a calling– it was an escape hatch. He was just a kid sitting on his bedroom floor, rewinding cassettes and pretending the world outside didn’t exist. He didn’t have a scene. He didn’t fit in at school. He barely spoke in class. But when he came home and turned on the radio, something in him softened. Music didn’t demand any explanations—it just sat with him. “I think I fell in love with music because it made me feel less lonely,” he says. “It was the only thing that didn’t make me feel like I was on the outside.”

Rishi’s first performance happened almost by accident—someone handed him a mic in tenth grade and he found himself singing “Summer of ‘69.” “I still remember the standing ovation,” he says. “That was the first time I thought that I could be good at something.” Around that same time, he stepped into his first studio session— one he couldn’t afford. A friend paid his bill. “Two thousand rupees,” he recalls. “That’s what it cost. That’s what it took for me to start.”