Suhrid Manchanda changed his stage name to Su Real on his grandmother’s suggestion. The Delhi-based bass music producer is on a high after his win (with Rashmeet Kaur) in ‘The Remix’, the Amazon Prime’s reality music show. The taste of victory being sweet, the musician is extending it with a 12-city celebratory tour that’ll see him perform in Hyderabad this weekend, alongside Nikhil.
The music producer — credited to have popularised niche genres like moombahton, trap and dancehall — took time to get accepted by the audience.
He says, “At first, most people will be reluctant to embrace anything different from what they are accustomed to. But in music, trends come and go, the underground is what feeds popular culture because it’s free of commercial motives – to experiment, to make art for arts sake. Every popular genre of music was once a niche.” He tries to provide music lovers, a mix of the familiar and the unknown.
Su Real varies his playlist from venue to venue, yet leaves room for on the spot improvisation to attune to local tastes. He wants his set to be a reflection of his personality, though trends change every day. He discovers music in everyday life – at the airport, at the shopping mall, out on the radio too. “I’ve always got Shazam app handy – you can point it at any music speaker and it will search its database to identify the song. I’ve always got my ears open for dope beats and ideas that will light up the dance floor.”
The gig series will also serve as a platform to test tracks of his upcoming album- a go-to method for musicians to fine-tune and perfect their compositions for a commercial release.
“At gigs, you get an immediate response from the crowd. Now that we produce on laptops, I can go straight into the session right after the show and fix what needs fixing. Great artistes in my opinion spend a lot of time developing and re-working their songs. Even in the age of mechanical reproduction, truly great art demands truly great sacrifice.”
‘The Remix’ stint helped him draw more audiences to his shows, many fans have been reaching out to him after his initial gigs in this tour. He enjoys his recording sessions as much as his live shows.
“Each brings a different pleasure. As entertainers, we are at the show to work, our job is to entertain and that’s no mean feat! In the studio, it’s just me, I don’t have to play the hits, I don’t have to get the hands in the air, I can just get lost in the music.”
He’s game for collaborations, yes, but with artistes who get along as friends and try to do something greater than merely the sum of their skill set.
(Su Real performs at Fat Pigeon, Hyderabad on June 9, 9 pm)