On Cloud ‘9’

BENGALURU: At a time when most netizens are busy hopping onto various social media trends, nine-year-old Megan Rakesh is taking the internet by storm with her rendition of songs by A-list singers Alicia Keys, Amy Winehouse, Led Zeppelin, Celine Dion, among others. And the young Bengaluru girl’s songs have now caught the attention of American singer-songwriter Keys, who shared her song , Fallin’, on Sunday.

From a fan base of 25,000 followers till Sunday, the number of Megan’s followers (@megandthemiracles) has shot upto 37.6K and counting. Now, artiste management companies from the US and UK are approaching Megan to plan her talent. Megan wakes up every morning at 5 and gets onto an Instagram live hosted by established artistes abroad, and sings till her school starts at 9 am. With the help of her parents, Rakesh VG and Anne Rakesh, she’s been hopping on various Lives hosted by artistes in the UK and US.

In one such live session hosted by UK content creator Danny B (@ohitsDannyB), Megan sang Keys’ Fallin’ and impressed the listeners with her mature voice. Megan says, “I’m so happy that Alicia Keys shared my video. I’m a huge fan of hers.” When one of Megan’s friends saw that the video had gone viral on Tik- Tok, she asked Megan if Keys would reply to her message if she texts her. In the background during the interview, we hear Megan asking her dad to source Keys’ phone number to connect.

“She’s been singing since she was four,” says Rakesh, a former member of the city-based band Out of Off ice. “She used to accompany us during all our practices and one day, during a show, she came up on stage and told us she wants to sing.” Since then, Megan has sung at most open events that have taken place in the city. During last year’s lockdown, Megan spent her Friday evenings singing some of her favourite songs which were recorded at home, while her dad joined in as a background singer and played the guitar.

They uploaded the video on the parents’ social media accounts for friends and family. Rakesh got a call from a friend one day who suggested that he get on Ehsaan Noorani’s Instagram Live as he brought on people to showcase their talent. “We got lucky and he picked our request and Megan sang Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll. He was so impressed that it encouraged us to start her own Instagram page,” he says. As they didn’t find many opportunities such as this for Megan to sing classic rock songs, they explored international accounts for Megan to showcase her talent.

Due to the pandemic, many show hosts were conducting live sessions, and thanks to Megan’s popularity, she was called to sing live with X-factor singer Jake Qukenden, UK content creators Dan, Deanie and Adam, and singer Matt Goss. She’s also impressed Hariharan with her version of Krishna Nee Begane Baaro, who said “Megan has a great bass voice”. Singer Talia Dean, who has released a single with Queen’s Brian May, saw Megan live and offered a voice masterclass on Zoom. “Unfortunately, we had a tech glitch,” adds Rakesh.