Lahari director Velu (Tulasiram Naidu).
Credit: DH PHOTO
Bengaluru: Music label Lahari will celebrate its 50th year by releasing 10,000 new songs under the banner 'Lahari–MRT Music–Prayog Indian Classical Concert', a pan-India talent hunt to discover and showcase fresh voices.
Based in Bengaluru, Lahari is collaborating with Prayog Studio and streaming platform 'Only Kannada', both in Banashankari.
Grammy-winning musician Ricky Kej is the brand ambassador for the initiative, which aims to release the songs by April.
Lahari and its sister company MRT Music already hold a catalogue of 1.26 lakh songs across genres such as Carnatic, Hindustani, folk, sugama sangeeta, and film music, mainly in Kannada and other South Indian languages.
“We realised we have a lot of unrecognised music talent in the country. We want to give a platform for all languages and genres,” said Lahari director Velu (Tulasiram Naidu).
Within a month, Lahari got Pradeep Mallur of Prayog Studio on board and recorded 1,400 Karnatik songs, with about 50 already released on MRT’s YouTube channel. Featured artistes include Shruthy BN, Ambika S Bhat, Karthik Mattur, Vaishnavi Madhusudhan, Sinchana Rao, and Chintapalli Manoja.
Velu likened the project to Purandaradasa’s line "Kereya neeranu kerege chall" (Pour the water back into the lake), describing it as Lahari’s way of giving back to the music community. Senior musicians will oversee the process.
Founded in April 1976 by Manohar Naidu, Lahari has grown into one of South India’s best-known music labels, with MRT Music handling production and post-production.