Shashaa's new single came from her state of mind

The singer has given hits like Humma, Baarish and more

A national award recipient, singer Shashaa Tirupati has a strong fan-base for her hit numbers like ‘Humma’ from ‘OK Jaanu’, ‘Baarish’ from ‘Half Girlfriend’ and ‘Hawa Hawai’ from ‘Tumhari Sulu’.
The singer has recently come out with the cover version of ‘O Pardesi’ from Dev D.

Besides ‘O Pardesi’, Shashaa has rendered her voice for ‘Prapanchame Alaa’ from the Telugu film ‘Jersey’, composed by Anirudh Ravichander and for the web series ‘Moh’ starring Adah Sharma. She recently released her first English original track, ‘String of Air’.

In an interview with Surupasree Sarmmah, the singer spoke about her first independent original, her inspiration and more.

You rose to popularity with ‘The Humma Song’. Did you expect the song to be such a huge hit?

I didn’t know that the song is releasing in my voice. I had received a call from Dharma Productions that they would like to try my voice for the song, so I went and recorded it.

I got a notification that ‘The Humma Song’ is out, and I listened to it. That’s when I saw my name in the credits. It sounded really good, and I had a feeling that it would do well as it was different from my previous works. It gave me a lot of satisfaction to see the song do so well.

You root back to Kashmir and now you predominantly work in Bollywood and Tamil industries. How did you come across music as a career?

I was lucky to have parents who had incredible taste in music. They have exposed me to anything and everything from the 1930s to the 1970s. So, I have grown up listening to songs that often my grandmother wouldn’t have heard. I used to sing and hum those songs. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that they were my primary gurus. My father used to make mixtapes and my mother used to write down the lyrics in notebooks for me to prepare. I have always been hungry for new lessons, music of various forms and genres. I started listening to jazz, Enigma, A R Rahman’s songs and a lot of Tamil, Iranian and Pakistani music because I come from a very multi-cultural community in Vancouver, Canada.

Your discography contains interesting line-up of songs...

I have just been very lucky to be called by composers to sing a wide plethora of songs. The fact that they believe in my abilities resulted in my discography.

Who do you look up to as an inspiration?

Besides A R Rahman, I look up to singer Vishal Dadlani.

Tell us about your first independent original - ‘String of Air’.

It is a result of a state-of-mind. I was in a vulnerable patch recently. I am a guarded person, so this song was to let that guard down for the temporary happiness I got by doing that. The song is about refraining from confiding in people, believing them or interacting with people. It is also more about letting go and understanding that happiness is a temporary phase.

You are also a motivational speaker...

I like to express my experience with people, if they can take anything away from it. Even if one incidence of my life can impact one life and change things for people, that’s very satisfying.