Look who's singing in Malayalam!

Twenty one-year-old Armaan Malik, son of a Mumbaikar dad and Andhra mom, has cartloads of music in his genes — that essential Malik factor in the bloodline says it all. The musical legacy, beginning with veteran composer Sardar Malik (his granddad) turns three generations old as the youngest scion from the musician family croons for film. This talented singer sings Njan Varumee Padhayilayi... in Malayalam in the upcoming release Theeram, starring Pranav Ratheesh in the lead.

When he got a long awaited call to sing in Malayalam from Theeram composer Afzal Yusuff, Armaan says, advice poured in from all corners “People were telling me a lot of pronunciation errors are likely to come your way. But I have gotten past Tamil and Telugu. Afzal Yusuff said he wanted to try me out in Malayalam. I went to the studio anticipating a tough game. It happened quite quickly and I am glad with the results.  The audience liked my song and voice in Malayalam,” smiles Armaan.

During recording, Armaan made it a point to understand the meaning of the verses fully well, so he could breathe soul into the voice. “If I don’t know the meaning, I would not know how to express. A lot of expression helped me to get the pronunciation right.” He shares how he got the retroflex consonants right, with Malayalam having lots of such sounds.

In the Malik family of composers, Armaan carves a niche as a singer/songwriter and he has earned it. “It’s because of my family’s encouragement that I am wherever I am today. These days, parents push their children to be something. I felt attracted to music and automatically veered towards it. Although I do write songs, my passion has always been singing and I am the first singer from the family. I want to be known as a singer/songwriter.” His debut album, Armaan, in 2014, featured his own lyrics.

Who do we expect he owes the credit to? Is it dada Sardar Malik, dad Daboo Malik, uncle Anu Malik or elder brother Amaal Malik? Armaan pops the name Jyothi Malik, his mom. Like any parent, his dad too was taken aback at the son’s decision to make a career out of music. Dad Daboo, having known the industry’s positives and negatives in his long tryst with film music had told him how fickle the whole business is and stay prepared before he takes a plunge. Though he did a lot of music, Armaan feels due credit still recedes from his musician dad.    

“Obviously if you tell that to a child, they would think why I should be in a place where going is so tough. My mom really inspired me to take up something that I really love. Her advice was that ‘if you are good at singing, don’t waste it’. She is the only one who really inspired me to do something with music in my life,” he recollects.

Also because of her mother’s Telugu roots, he believes South Indian languages come handy for him. His rich repertoire of film music has Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali and Konkani with Malayalam being a recent update. Armaan started learning Indian classical music since age six. In 2011, at 15, he received a full tuition scholarship for the five week summer programme at Berklee College of Music in Boston and did a course on pop/R&B Music. At this age, he owns so many hit songs in Bollywood.

Before his first Malayalam song happened, Armaan unexpectedly got his first hang of the language while recording one of his Telugu songs. He got to know about composer M. Jayachandran and developed a liking for his music. He had gotten back from a month long vacation in New Zealand and has many offers from Malayalam, upon which he is doing a selection process.