Play'lists by the lil' ones: Guide on who to watch out for this summer

The adage “old is gold” no longer holds true when it comes to musicians in the city. The new crop of young musicians in the city are making headway in the music scenario  with gigs at popular pubs and music festivals, with an unparalleled passion for music. In their teens and early 20s, for these youngsters age is no bar to musical success.

Mia Aliyah Makhija, Mallya Aditi international school
At 13 years of age, Mia is a singer, songwriter and the lead vocalist of the band “Who Is Playing”. The chirpy eighth grader was invited to perform at B Flat on women’s day this year and has performed with her band at seasonal music pubs like Humming Tree. While she performs rock music with her band the young musician is also heavily influenced by blues and jazz. Her musical palate ranges from Led Zeppelin and ACDC to Ella Fitzgerald. Her original composition ‘Temporary Tattoo’ , which is a part of the bands repertoire ,” she says was drawn from young love. Mia advocates starting out young as a performer and asserts “It builds your self confidence, you no longer have anything like stage fright.”

Teenasai Balamu, Symbiosis school of media and Communication
Teenasai, popularly known as Grape Guitar Box, is as quirky as her stage name. A 21 year old fresh out of college and basking in the aftermath of her recent gig at Easy Tiger which brought the house down, Teenasai says as an upcoming artist it really matters how you market yourself “It matters how you network and how you put yourself out there. Nobody knew about my music until my YouTube channel took off.” The youngster who is influenced by Indie artists Angus and Julia Stone and a Canadian band Lumineers talks about carving her own music niche “I am working on creating an alternative side to pop and putting in the influence of music I grew up listening to like Rahman and some classic rock.”

Teju Jayaram, CMS Jain university
At 18, Teju Jayaram is the lead guitarist, song writer and composer of the band August 15 and already has an audio album of the same name released with the band.  The young musician who draws his inspiration from B B King and the Raghu Dixit Project talks about creating music with the band, “We mostly play alternative rock. At popular pub gigs however, the repertoire is more about catering to the audience so we churn out all time favourites like Hotel Calofornia.” Explaining about his original compositions Teju says, “It is a hum which drifts into my head and then I work on it and give it the form of a song.”

Ajay George Joseph, Christ university
Ajay the guitarist of the popular city band Aathma, doubles up as a law student when he is not donning his rockstar cape. Having bagged the first prize at Strawberry Fields Music Festival and performing in popular gigs all over the country including Hard Rock Cafe Hyderabad and Bengaluru, Ajay is living a rockstar dream at a young age. The young musician who also plays for another band ‘Space Is All We Have’ dabbles in two distinctive genres of music. While playing with Aathma is along the lines of Indo-western fusion with elements of rock and punk along with a carnatic music influence, space is all we have borders on ambience music and what he likes to call “space rock” explains Ajay.