Indie across the oceans

When Arko Mukherjee first came to Mumbai, little did he know that he would be lending his voice for Bollywood movies. “I always thought I’d work on albums. But Bollywood, for me, just happened,” he recalls. After a long contemplation of going indie, Arko finally took the dive, and produced Reeva, a song that featured on Billboard Top 50 at number 49.

Being the first Indian artiste to be featured on the prestigious list took Arko by complete surprise. “A pleasant surprise,” he adds, laughing. “I’m still trying to figure out what it means to have a song featured on Billboard.”

Production for Reeva started last year, when Arko decided to go independent in English, having nursed the idea of creating music in the language for a long time. This, however, wasn’t an easy journey, considering the small amount of space indie artistes have to grow in the country. “The music requires backing from producers, something that always ends up happening in Bollywood. And the idea was to get away from this circle,” he explains.

On the other hand, without any producers or labels backing his idea, Arko believes he had much more liberty to play around with his basic concept. “The idea was to create something simple and peppy,” he says. “Reeva is a happy, in-the-moment kind of a song.”

Since making his debut as music director in Mahesh Bhatt’s Jism 2, Arko has gone on to contribute to popular movies like Kapoor & Sons, and Rustom. His career also boasts of working with some of the biggest music producers in the industry, including Pritam, Honey Singh, Mithoon, and Atif Aslam.

Over the past year, Arko has been living a rather busy life, with the West vying for his attention too. And juggling a parallel career abroad isn’t always the easiest thing to do, admits the musician. “One needs patience and perseverance to get through so much,” he says, adding that one needs clarity of the mind to survive.

Now, Arko is looking forward to yet another year of splitting his time between L.A. and Bollywood, with interesting projects lined up in both spaces. While he remains tight-lipped about his international ventures he’s much more chatty about projects back home. “There’s Anubhav Sinha’s new production that I have worked on. I’ve also lent my voice to Bareilly Ki Barfi, which will be out soon,” he smiles.

Even with much on his plate, Arko promises that Bollywood still has precedence. “I won’t be stepping away from Bollywood; I’m not even thinking of it. It’s my priority,” he signs off.