The student in Hesham Abdul Wahab is insatiable — constantly learning, improvising, pruning and polishing himself for better. He has mastered the art of living the moment. The teenage reality star that he was about a decade ago is now an accomplished singer and more over a music director. Back-to-back film projects making a beeline to his kitty, it looks like his debut as a composer in Salt Mango Tree served as the perfect jumpboard for his stint as a music director.
The first attempt fetching him the Mirchi Music Awards South for the best upcoming music composer, Hesham is happy and excited. At the same time, he is conscious not to rest on the laurels and there is more to come from his kitty. With four movies ready to exploit his tuning skills, Hesham is getting into that phase of life where he has many promises to delivering. Having his hands full does not throw him off balance. “Once committing these many movies, I prefer to isolate myself from each film. I shut myself out in my route between two films,” he clarifies. The films are of debut directors Noushad, Rojo Prasad, Siberian Kaduva by Arun and an untitled project of Akku Akbar.
One of his latest completed compositions was for the Tamil-Hindi bilingual Mera India directed by Pratheesh Dipu. Hesham turns loquacious on setting tunes to the verses of Mehaboob and Na. Muthukumar. “Working with two legendary writers was an experience of different kind. Both are genuine writers in their own way. Muthukumar sir has made me wonder with his prowess to fit right words into a tune in minutes. Perhaps, the movie might be the last he has worked for,” he says. The director, in his words, was pushing him to bring his best all the time. “Somewhat between 20 and 25 demos were done for Mera India. The director had such flair to choose the exact tune from the composer,” he says.
A Saudi-bred boy until plus-two, Hesham underwent an overall transformation since taking part in the popular music reality show Idea Star Singer to be a true-blue Malayali. He went on to take a bachelor’s in Audio Production from SAE Institute in addition to a diploma in Audio Engineering. “My study in sound engineering is always a brownie point to communicate with the team I work with,” he adds. Singing is not taking a back seat. In the upcoming movie Kochavva Paulo Ayyappa Coelho (KPAC) Hesham has sung one song for Shaan Rahman.
