Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Hi, guys. Welcome again to the Rajkor podcast. And this time I've probably got one of my favorite guests. And me, I've been listening to his music and his journey as a listener and also inspiration as a musician. So I'm going to introduce the man, the myth, the legend. Muktar. Muktar. So how you doing, bro?
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Hi, Raj. How are you? I'm fine.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Very good, thanks. Very good. So how you been? I haven't seen you on the scene for ages, I think. Well, what a privilege.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Just, just busy with, with, with family life and obviously, you know, music. Music work as I, as I've been doing for. For the last. Seems like a whole century of working in the music industry.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I don't want to touch. Touch base on that. On your music work, actually, recently, because a few years back, I listened to probably just. Just maybe after. Was it after lockdown? Before lockdown, you release, you know, reshma's song, very famous song. Just slipped my mind now because I'm on the podcast. Yeah. You did a version with, with Suneedi Chauhan and Sword and niggam in there.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: All right. Yeah, yeah. Jodi Tori song. Yeah, yeah.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Jori Tori. That's it.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Doritory made it in that song. I actually love that. Know what I loved about that? The key change in the middle.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: Right? Okay. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the key. The key change in the middle wasn't. Wasn't really planned. That was, uh, the producers wanted to add because Sonam. So Sona Nigam had sang it and then Suniddhi had done a version of it. But obviously, you know, the female and the males girl, because they didn't separately, it wasn't. It wasn't planned as a duet. So what happened was the producers were saying that it would be nice if you can bring them together. And I says, well, you could only do that if you're going to put, like a key change. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't too cracky on the idea of doing that, but it kind of worked out.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: I actually loved it, as I said, like, I love the way the keys just sort of just flipped as well. It was perfectly blended, I think, the way you did that. So it was great. And I've been listening to that. I showed all my cousins and stuff that song, and we. Because that's one of our favorite songs, a legendary song in it. So you did massive justice to it.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: No, thank you. Yeah, thank you. It was, I mean, working with people like Snide and Sorna niggam. Is a massive privilege for myself.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's a privilege for them. That's just me. My personally. Me personally, like, yeah. So, um, let's just. Sorry, that was just my introduction. Just my. That was my fanboy moment, basically.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Right, okay.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Because just. Yeah, yeah, I'm still listening to your music. Anything. Something comes out as much as. Because I just got social media there, ain't it? So if you. If something on social media, it's not recommended on Spotify, you sort of lose track of what's going on.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Yeah, of course, of course.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: I think.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: I think that's what the music industry has become. It's so fast moving now, and, I mean, sometimes I come across songs that, you know, and I'm thinking, wow, this is a great track. How comes I haven't heard that? And it's when you start looking into it and you think, oh, that was released a year ago, two years ago, and you think you kind of. You miss so many great, great projects and great songs and stuff and some artists that you don't even. You haven't heard of, and you think, wow, you know, where have these guys been?
[00:03:41] Speaker A: I mean, like, an example of that, I released a track called Sa, which was like a r and b.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Sort.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Of drum and bass vibe track, and initially it picked up very slowly, and I think, and a year later, it boom, bang. It's been played in India.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: And also.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. And that is the positive side to music in this age that we live in.
I mean, like, for instance, I did a song called Charkha with the Wadali brothers, and.
And all of a sudden, in this sort of last six months or eight months, it's just gone. It's just gone crazy. Everybody's sharing it on reels and on the social network and stuff, and it's just gone mad. And you just never know when a track that you've done, it could be ten years or 20 years down the line. You just never know when music's going to. People gonna pick up on it and start sort of playing it again. So, you know, that's the great thing about music.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Is that the one you done about ten years ago?
[00:04:56] Speaker B: Yeah, possibly longer, I think that was in 2007.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Yeah. It was one of my favorite albums. I love that album, honestly. It was such a good album because it had that. It had the. It had the sort of the Sufi, but then it had. That had the muktar so touch to it. So it was like, yeah, with that.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Project when I was working with Lakinder Badali we were in Canada at the time while we were doing that project, and, you know, I try to get the best out of what he's good at.
It's like when I work with any artist, it's always about what their strengths are, you know, because sometimes certain artists will come in and they'll say, I mean, like, even with Lakwinder Udali, he was like, do you think the album's going to be too sufi? It's going a bit too sort of classical. I says, look, that's where you come from. Those are your strengths. Some. We should be, you know, highlighting, highlighting your strengths and stuff. And he was a little bit unsure about it, but, you know, the album did extremely well. You know, a lot of people appreciated it, a lot of musicians around the world and people in the music industry, you know, I really appreciated that album.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: I think that album sort of made him brought recognition worldwide before he was a bit local artist. That definitely made him globally, like a global brand.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, kind of broke him out to the international market.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So, anyway, let's start the podcast properly.
So tell me a bit about your background. I'm assuming you're from wolves, so, yeah, Wolverhampton, yeah.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: All right. Okay, we're not too far, yeah.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: So tell me a bit about your background, about your childhood and how you got into music in the first place.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah, music was. It was in the family. I mean, even before I was born, you know, my dad used to play with the band, used to sing, play the harmonium and the talag tabla. So we had instruments knocking around the house and it was just one of them. It was like a natural thing. It was like second nature to us guys, you know, just to pick an instrument, instrument up and start playing it, just by watching, just by learning the way my dad used to perform and play his instruments and stuff. So we, you know, it's all self taught, really. We've never had any teaching and my dad never sat down with me and said, look, this is how you play a keyboard, or this is how you play, you know, a certain instrument. So, yeah, it was, you know, natural thing for all of us guys. I mean, you know, the band.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: So how did you, like, when you say naturally, like, I'm really interested in, like, sort of a, like, I'm learning guitar, like, when I have time, because I've got two baby daughters now. So as you. You're a parent, so you probably know the time you get.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, of course. It's very limited.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Exactly, yeah, so you get five minutes here and there and here and there. So was there a methodology you used at that time to learn, or was it just. I don't know, you just picked up, have fun?
Yeah.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: So picking up instruments, it was a natural thing for us. It was more about having fun and to be able to see if we can actually play the instruments and stuff. So it started off, you know, like a very fun thing.
And then as we got older, you know, we started taking a little bit more seriously, and we used to talk about, you know, maybe forming a band in the future, you know, that, you know, we could all play certain instruments and stuff. So, you know, that that was our dream while we were growing. While we were growing up. And it was only until we, towards the end of school, when we started playing as an actual band, you know, the music. The music. The head of music teacher, he was, like, really, really intrigued in all these sort of indian instruments and whatnot, and he kind of really encouraged us and put us into competitions and stuff and.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Is that school?
[00:09:16] Speaker B: That was at school, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, we did extremely well. Even back in them days, you know, we got to place it in competitions. We did so well. We got to perform at Royal Albert hall through the schools proms event that they have every year, so. And we got the outstanding performance award at the proms as well. So, you know, it was.
It was, you know, it was. It was like a dream come true for us because we always wanted to sort of get into the music industry, and we looked up to so many bands, like, a lot, and he run me during that time.
So, yeah, you know, and basically, this is where it all kicked off from.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: Just out of interest, how did you, like. Sort of just out of my curiosity. So you got all your brothers. How did you know which? Did you just land at a certain instrument, or did one person decide, name, I'll be on our.
[00:10:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it just happened naturally, really. I mean, like, I kind of levitated more towards the budget at that time and keyboards and piano and stuff, so I was more interested in that.
And Raj, he was a tabla player. He was playing tabla from a very young age, and he started playing with my dad's band. And so he was already playing the tabla and serge through sort of religious congregations. He used to sing a little bit at religious events, so it was just. It was already kind of abandoned the making, if you look at it in that respect.
And then when we left school, that's when we decided to pursue it as a career. And then the other brother joined in and it was just a natural progression, really. Everybody kind of certain instruments they wanted to play and that's how it took off.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: How did you come up with your sound? Like at that time, the sahal to sound, which is signature, even today, you know, I've never.
You have sort of. There's imitations out there, but I've never seen that sound matched by anyone. Like, this is my personal opinion. I've never. That soul to sound was, for me, it's one of the best. And it's evergreen. You can put it and now put Hasoga now. And it's a. It's just. I can't explain it. It's just like magic.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the best way to explain it is it's like everybody has a personality. It's like, you know, that. That's, that's our personality that comes through.
Through the music. I mean, like, I was the music producer, so it's just something that I enjoyed producing and playing and certain influences that interested me, I think that comes through your music. And it was never a conscious decision that this is going to be our style. It was never planned. It was just like I said, so many different personalities come together and a sound can be created if you don't.
I think it's very important to have that, you know, like as a band or as a solo artist to have your own sound. Because the thing is, a lot of people kind of listen to what's happening in the market and they think, oh, this is what the audience wants. And they try to imitate that. And then what happens is you're not really creating yourself a sound for yourself. What you're doing is you're just copying what's already out there. And to me, I think that you kind of killing your career in some respect because it's the longevity of that. You're shortening that because you're just jumping on the bandwagon and you're just doing what everybody else is doing.
And the guys who are still surviving today are the ones who have their own style, who always stuck to what they've been doing, and they have their own signature sound.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: So, you know, back in reference to the sound, did you mix this, mix it yourself or was it mixed by an external body or.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: No, it was always. It was mixed. It was mixed by Perry Bogle. He was our sound engineer. That was all the suhota's material.
We had him to mix, you know, all the songs and during the whole recording process.
But myself and Serge, the lead singer, we always knew how we wanted to sound, so we was always guiding the sound engineer as to how we wanted it to sound because we've already kind of done the pre production before going into the studio, so it was very important that we captured what we had, had, uh, envisioned.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Yeah, because, like, the tabla and stuff was, as I said, I'm. I'm, like, fanboying again here, but just like the tabla sound on there, I've never, ever, to this day.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: I've never hear, quite heard that, that sound. The way the tabla stands out, the way certain elements of your music stood out. So it's absolutely fascinating. And, uh. Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: I mean, that's, that's. That's purely down to sticking to your own style. You know, there's a certain. I mean, like, certain musicians have certain ways of playing certain instruments, and you can kind of. You can kind of pick up on that straight away when. When there's a certain musician playing on a certain song, you can kind of pick up that. All right, that must be so. And so he's playing that or whatnot. Yeah. And like I said, I think it's really important to have your, you know, your. Your individual sound, and that's what carries you forward, because it's like he says, you need. You only need to hear, like, a couple of bars into a sahota's track. And, you know, straight away it's a Sahota's track.
[00:15:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: You know. Yeah.
And I think that's. I think that's really important in music.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: That you do have your. Absolutely. I want to reference one of my earlier podcasts. I was interviewing shin, and he said the same thing about your music is because as soon as you hear soul to speech, that's it.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: DC's saying again, he's awesome as ours. So he was telling me, he goes, as soon as I hear soul strike, that's it. Goosebumps. So, yeah, so he's like, so was everything played in, played in or, like, obviously times have changed now. Yeah. Not. Not much is. I don't know about your experience, because you've worked in Bollywood and stuff, but here, like, there's a lot of bedroom producers and not everything's played in everything sampled. But originally, was everything played in for yourselves or I.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: Yeah, originally, yeah, I remember those days. I mean, I couldn't do it now, I don't think. Yeah, but originally, in them days, it was.
It was like I'd have to memorize every little single piece right. From, you know, from the beginning. To the end, the bass line or the chords or the lead parts, everything would have to be sort of rehearsed before we go to the recording studio. And then, I mean, I would spend pretty much most part of the day just recording and dubbing each instrument one at a time in the recording studio, and then, you know, then get the electronic drum kit out and then play that on top. And it was just. It was a crazy time. But it was enjoyable as well, because, you know, I mean, as much as I enjoyed that, you know, I don't think I would like to go back to doing that because my memory isn't as good as it used to be.
I think, back now, how did I remember all the. All the little pieces and all the little percussion parts and everything, you know, to record.
You know, to go into a recording studio and record a whole album and it's all in your head.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: So it was all done sort of simultaneously. So the album was like.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. I mean, like, we'd go in, myself, Serge and Rod, we'd go into the recording and to the recording booth, and we would kind of put a guide track down for the song. And then. And then I would go in and start, you know, dubbing all the pieces in all the separate parts, the chords and the drums and everything. And then Serge would come in and do his final vocal.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: What?
Door. Sorry, let me just rephrase that for the audience. What software were you using that point that time?
[00:18:17] Speaker B: No, I'm talking very early days. There was no software. We were recording straight onto two inch tape.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: Tuesday bucket.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So there was no computers involved in it at all.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Wow. So that was all.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: Yeah, it was pretty much. It was all live? It was all live recording. Wow.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Nominal. Okay, so how did you. From the Sahota, how did you transition to Muktar, so to yourself? I remember, uh. I don't know what is your. But that was your first solo album, the one with, um. Uh. Was it, uh, master Sleem in the froze Khanda?
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
It wasn't Master Sluman.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: I'm getting mistaken. I know froze Khan.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: It was Frau's gun Lemberg. That was Lemberg Hussain for his debut release.
And there was a few other artists in there as well.
Yeah, that was my debut sort of solo project.
And that was when sort of, the band was kind of. We were in talks about sort of having. Having a bit of a break from the band because we were doing it like, I think it was probably 1012 years at that point. And, you know, there's talks about maybe sort of having a break and whatnot. And I thought, you know, I love producing and I wanted, I just wanted to carry on producing and putting material out there.
So that's how the solo project really came about.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: And was it, did you approach, how did you, how did you think about approaching the, was it done by the label or approaching the musicians you wanted on the album or. And the feel of each song?
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Yeah, that was pretty much through the record label.
They obviously had certain recorded vocals, like Lemba Hussain Puri. There was, there was quite, quite a few tracks that he had recorded here. And so there was a selection of songs that I, that I kind of handpicked. And I thought, well, these are the type of tracks I'd like to work on. And that's how the first album came about.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: And what about this? Because there were some songs that were quite different to the soul, to sound.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: It's almost like you established your. Oh, yeah. I mean, you still had it. Yeah, I can't remember the named so, so long ago. Oh, you know better than me. I can't remember each track now. Uh, yeah, yeah. Uh, how did you sort of. Because you transitioned certain songs, they were, they were, uh. They became your son, basically. Like, like, yeah, later on you had, you had Jogi with them. Uh, Arif Laharna.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah. See, the thing was, I mean, I didn't want to go from sahotas and take what I did with the sahotas and just carry that on.
You know, it's like reinventing yourself again.
I mean, there's always going to be elements of my music that still reflect back to the sahotas because that's my style. Like, I, like I explained earlier, but I wanted to, you know, experiment with new, new ways of producing new sounds and new collaborations and all that kind of stuff. And especially when you're working with different artists and different singers, the music has always got to sort of complement the artists that you're working with as well. So that brings on a bit of a change to the way you produce and the way you kind of interact with the artists. So. Yeah, so, and it was a conscious decision as well that I wanted to sort of, there was stuff that wouldn't have suited, say, the sahota's material, but it would suit another artist. So there were so many ideas that I wanted to play with, and I got to do that through my solo projects.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: That's amazing. And just going back to this hotel, I can't remember which shows you guys were on at that time because I know you were on top of the Pops because you did the english album as well. Yourself produced that was it. Yourself produced that was it. Was it called out of Reach?
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Yeah, there's out of reach of the album was called the right time.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Yeah. So how did that come about?
[00:22:40] Speaker B: It was the whole craze of sort of like. Cause Bhangra was really taking off and sort of, you know, people in the mainstream were kind of starting to sort of listen to what was going on in this Bhangra scene. So a lot of bands and a lot of artists were starting to cross over. And the labels were really sort of encouraging us to, you know, being, like, UK born and probably the youngest band in the UK at the time.
They were really kind of pushing us, saying, look, you know, you guys, if anybody can do it, it's you guys that can kind of cross over. So that's how that project came about. I mean, we did, like you said, out of reach. Then we recorded a whole album of english songs.
I mean, it wasn't. It wasn't as successful as we would have liked it to be, but.
And at the end of the day, I think it was kind of bitter. Premature, really, for asian music to cross over at that time. I don't think they were kind of ready for that whole. That whole sort of sound is a bit of a culture shock.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: What's really interesting is because, like, people like people because of the era we're in, social media and stuff, so people don't realize that the UK Bangalores already hit these milestones that people are talking about now. Like, crossing over, doing these crossover albums, being on mainstream tv. You guys. You guys are on the UPNs and Eid, you know, all on. Was it generation game? I can't remember the shows now. Blue Peter, was it you guys on Blue Peter? Yeah.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: Yeah, we were on Blue Peter. And surprise, surprise.
And quite a few. Quite a few shows during that time.
During that time, yeah, we were performing on quite a few of these shows. And, you know, it's great because we kind of grow up watching all these shows and stuff. And then you're performing on these programs. It was a great experience.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Yeah, because, as I said, that's. That's. That's. To me, that's massive. There they were, the primetime shows of. Yeah, that day. And you guys, we talk about, like, you know, this, and I don't mean this in disrespectful way. I, you know, everyone's achieved what they've achieved now. People have crossed over. They've gone big. But the UK was doing it thanks to you, like people like yourself and. Yeah, yourselves and that. So pretty amazing. How did, how did that come about? Was it through your management or I.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: That was through the record label.
You know, I think like their researchers, like Blue Peter, surprise, surprise. I mean, surprise, surprise was one of them where they wanted to surprise. The guy was fanatic. He was like a big, huge sahota fan and he wanted to play. Play with the band. He played the tour, look, and so they got in touch with us and that's how surprise, surprise came about. I mean, Blue Peter, they had heard our music and stuff and there was a segment that they were doing on sort of asian music.
So that's how that came about. I mean, it was fantastic during that time because it was like, wow, you know, blue Peter and surprise surprises. These are like mainstream, you know, peak time shows. Yeah.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: And, okay, so back to you. So I'm digressing because I keep going back and forth. Back to yourself as a solo artist, which album was next, if I can remember properly.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Yeah. After timeout, I did for the music and that was when I did the jokey track run Colin and songs like that. Yes.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: Again, that was a massive, massive change. You went like sort of heavy metal, sort of.
And it was fantastic. Even that was like, uh, even that, I felt was well ahead of its time because like, like, I think that music's just.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's not even sort of. It's. It fit in today, basically. That was why. Yeah. How did that come about? That one?
[00:26:53] Speaker B: Yes. Which, the. The doggie track.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Yeah, doggy.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. See, I mean, I've always been into heavy metal music, even back in the day. I mean, I kind of wanted to bring it in with the Sohoto stuff. But like I said, it has to suit the band. You have to suit the singer. So, you know, you can't just throw heavy metal with anything. It definitely has to suit the vocalist. So when I came across the jogi song, it was one. Instantly I thought this is my opportunity to kind of bring that, that kind of sound in and, you know, to add them type of grunge guitars on there and whatnot. But it wasn't kind of full on heavy metal because I don't think that kind of sound would really work with bhangra music or Punjabi music for that.
So it was kind of still, still kept it kind of commercial and, you know, and I think a lot of people kind of enjoyed the fact that it was different and there was nothing else, really, in the market. And that's what it's about. I mean, I've always wanted to do stuff that hasn't been done before and try and introduce something new.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: Yeah. You're like me, sort of, you know, I think the same way as you do. We should always be evolving music and not just sort of following a trend.
[00:28:23] Speaker B: Of course, of course.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So see. See how. See how you can bring in different elements like that. And I don't think, to be fair, I don't think anyone's ever done it again properly. Not on top of my head. They may have, but not. Not at that. At that level. I think it was pretty.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't. I haven't really. I mean, Bollywood, I've heard a lot of sort of guitars and whatnot, but not. Not in bungalow music. I don't think a lot of people have.
Maybe, like I said, some producers or artists don't want to kind of experiment too much because, you know, for the fact that he doesn't do well or he doesn't take off and, you know, be a wasted kind of project, but I think you have to kind of do them things, you know? I mean, it's not like, you know, everything has been done in music. There's nothing that you can kind of, you know, magically create something totally different. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's stuff that's already been done, but I think it's how you kind of fuse that with the stuff that you're doing or with punjabi music, you know, try and. Try and bring certain elements in from different genres, you know, to make it. To make it interesting. And I think it's. It's great for the audience as well that there's a. You know, there's a variety of stuff that, you know, people have to listen to.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: Absolutely. And so your. Your production, and along with my other favorite was swami. Right. Diamond, Dougal. So, you guys.
[00:29:55] Speaker B: Yeah, he's a great producer.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, he's a great guy as well, to be fair. I'll tell you a story about him.
When I was getting back into music, like recently, a few years back, he. I was getting into sync licensing, but he took a half an hour of his time on the phone call without any. Any sort of anything in return. He goes, Raj, he talked me through inside out, told me every little thing. And that's the kind of guys.
That's why you guys are where you are. Because of you, that attitude is able to help other people.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: Yeah. It's passionate.
You can hear the passion in certain musicians and producers and singers who love talking about the art and, you know, helping people out and explaining, you know, so you don't make the same kind of mistakes that we have, you know, going through what we've been through, so. And I think that's really helpful for the future generation as well.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: No, it's absolutely amazing. As I said, I could. I've got the same vibe for myself as I got from. From diamond.
Yeah, great guy. He's a great guy, to be fair. Yeah. So we talked about Bollywood. How did you transition into Bollywood?
[00:31:06] Speaker B: People that have worked with, like Eyre Aman and Salim Suleiman, you know, having links with these type of people that have got noticed and people have listened to my music and certain production houses have been in touch with us and says, look, we like what you've done here, and, you know, we like that kind of flavor on one of our songs and stuff. So, so that's. That's how I've kind of got into producing songs and composing songs for movies.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: So any exciting projects you got, let us know about Bollywood or otherwise?
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a few movie projects that I'm kind of in the process of sort of completing at the moment.
And so as soon as that's done, it's gone a little. It's. I've kind of taken a bit of a step back from it because I want to start getting back into sort of like, releasing singles and maybe getting into some album work as well, purely for the reason, because as it's great doing all that kind of stuff, you know, the movie stuff, it kind of restricts you in a little, in a way because you kind of dictate it to almost to a certain level.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: You know, you kind of produce a track, you have full artist artistic control, but then with movies, you have to kind of follow the script and you have to. There has to be a certain way of producing a song and it has to fit with the film and all that kind of stuff. So there's a lot of that going back and forwards where I prefer kind of sort of, you know, having full artistic control right from the beginning to the end and be able to, you know, do what I want to do. So, you know, so there's lot. There's loads of projects. I mean, there's loads of singles lined up and there's some kind of album work I'm kind of sort of in talks with at the moment as well because I want to kind of get back into maybe producing an album and because I enjoy doing the. I enjoy really working on an album because it's like a bit of a journey for me. When you start the tracks, you have different kind of elements and different styles they want to play with and kind of, you know, kind of tell a bit of a story with an album. So. Yeah, so there's a lot of material coming out. It's just when that I can't give you.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: I can't wait. I can't wait. That's amazing. So I won't keep you too long now. Just. I normally finish off the podcast with.
The whole purpose of the podcast is my pursuit of musical excellence. So what advice would you give me and any listeners who are pursuing musical excellence? And I want to get better and.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: I. Yeah, so do you. Do you sing or.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: I sing, yeah, I mainly sing. I sing sort of classical.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: That's your main classical?
[00:34:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I do. I do touch a production, but with the daughter, don't. The main. My main emphasis every day is practicing vocals, get down, put out, do my runs.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: And where. You know what I mean?
[00:34:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, you. You're in such a good a position in the times that we are today, as in, you've got YouTube and you've got so much.
There's so many videos that are out there, and you can get so much wealth of knowledge from just watching certain videos and tutorials and stuff which we didn't have back in the day. So we would have to listen to the legends, all the material that was out during the time and just listened by just listening to them and copying what they were doing, just to learn the art. So I think you can learn a hell of a lot just by listening to your favorite artist. For instance, if there's certain artists that you like just by listening to them, trying to do what they're doing so that you can understand how they've got there is the most important part of teaching yourself. If that's the kind of avenue you want, that's amazing.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Just. Just. I want to just recollect a story that Tubbsy told me. Tubsy, donkey Walla.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: He told me a story about Raj.
Brother Rod. Sold to that. Yeah, I think he learned. Bye. And this, I think, was VCR times, then by half speeding the BPM of a video and learning tabla that way. So. Yeah, I don't know how true that is, but that's what he told me, and I find that absolutely fascinating.
[00:35:53] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, when. If you've got the passion to learn, you know? You know, that's, that's a great starting point if you have that passion to learn, because a lot of people come into this business and they think, yeah, I want to do this, I want to do that. But then the fire kind of dies down really quickly because it's not as easy as certain people think it is. So, I mean, the first point, like I says, is you do have that passion, you know, is a great starting point. The rest is, I mean, like I said, everything's out there today. You know, you can just, you know, pick up your phone. You can kind of do a search. If there's anything you want to learn, to pretty much, you will kind of come across it and somebody's kind of teaching it. So I think. I think that's, that's a, that's a great place to start. But it's, like I said, it's about creating your own sound.
Ultimately, that's, that's. That should be your goal. Yeah, that I have my own sound. Not, not that you sound like x, y and z, because you just get lost in you. You just get lost in all that, you know, with all the other artists and the other musicians and stuff. So having your own sound, I think, is really important.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: What I find, like, in terms of exactly what you're saying, in terms of practicing, what I found, especially with a busy schedule, that's a struggle I have because, you know, with kids and stuff, another. And work and stuff. I work full time as well, is actually having a dedicated schedule for myself. Not everyone does it this way. I have. I have, like, no matter what happens, a minimum hour, I have to practice. Yeah, that's my schedule. That's the only way I get stuff done. Otherwise, you know, otherwise you get distracted by life.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: And that's.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: It's almost like you, you know, people have the religious time aside.
[00:37:45] Speaker B: Yeah, that's.
[00:37:46] Speaker A: That's that time, isn't it? You put that.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: And I think that's very important. Yeah, it's really important to, to take that time out of, you know, I mean, we were lucky because we were young. We spent all our time instead of sort of, you know, out on the streets just, you know, doing what kids do. We didn't really do that. We spent that time learning. Learning instruments and learning the art. And, you know, you have to, you have to have that time that you dedicate to learning, you know, whatever you. Whatever instruments you want to play, if it's or you want to sing, you have to dedicate that time because it'll pay off in the long run once you. You've done that sort of hard work.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: That's. That's absolutely fantastic. I won't take too much of your time. I know we had half an hour. I think we've on 40 minutes. I can carry on, as you probably realize. I can talk forever.
Yeah. Especially with oneself, because, as I said, I love learning off people like yourself. And people have been there, done it, you know, and. Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for your time.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: It's been a pleasure.
[00:38:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And if there's anything else you want to say to the audience and before we go or any last messages or.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, just. Just keep an eye out on my social network, social media, for my forthcoming releases. And I hope you enjoy what I'm. I've done, and I hope you enjoy what I'm about to put out in the future.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: Thank you so much. That was the legend himself, Muktar Sahuta.
You know, I'm not normally sort of nervous on these, but I don't know why. Just I was slightly nervous. And he's smiling at the moment. But anyway, yeah, so, yeah, this is one of the biggest ones I've done and massive thanks to Muktar. Sorta. Please leave a review, drop a comment, and if you've seen this on one of the shorts, um, please drop a comment on there and share. And also follow Muqtar on. On his, uh, socials. Uh, do you want to give those shout out what they are.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's all the same. It's forward slash moqtasaota, so, yeah, all my. My handfuls are the same.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: Fantastic. And please leave a review for us as well on, uh, I itunes or Spotify. So thank you so much and until we meet again for the next guest. God bless you all. Thanks.
