Shifting genres is not something that happens regularly. It requires a change of mood, psychology to achieve success. It is especially hard when the genres are radically different. Amit Naik is an interesting case in point. A rapper in Konkani he has touched upon various social issues that afflict this society. It caught the fancy of the local populace. He sang about issues like matka which caught the fancy of the local population. It was a parody based on the international hit “Shape of you.” Now he has changed genres, style and mood with a love song called ‘Zai Tujo Mog’.
Speaking of the journey that he had to take, Amit said his music producer wanted him to try something different. He challenged Amit to try something different. Amit said, “My producer noticed changes in me. I had fallen in love and I was behaving in a different manner. Love manifests itself differently in different cases”.
He wrote the song two weeks ago and he was very clear about how he wanted to present the song. Amit said, “I wanted the song to be presented in a very professional manner. I wanted a very professional crew to do the video. The actress Anushka Chari was very helpful. Many retakes happened but we were very clear, we did not want to lose the essence of the song. It was shot in Donapaula and it was shot over two days.” It rained continuously but the rain gods took pity on them and on both the days when the shooting took place, it did not rain.
For Amit this was something new, focusing on emotions. He said he needed to focus on his emotions because that was something the audience enjoyed watching. He said the songs becomes evergreen when the listeners connect emotionally. Konkani as a language he said was now blooming. There was a language barrier but it was important to push.
Amit is also known as the Waking Grunt. This is the persona he acquires when he raps. The Waking Grunt’s Youtube Channel has 18.5k followers with over 70 Konkani rap music videos. Asked how it helped him in his life, Amit said, “The rapping has helped me to gain peace and channelise my energy in the right way. If not, then definitely it would have come out in an aggressive way, which would have been wrong”.
As a creative person, he lives life on his own terms. A night person as he admitted during his interaction, he said he liked the silence in the night which helped him concentrate better on the topics he was writing about. He admitted that watching movies was a big distraction but social media took a lot of his time everyday. Writing a song he said was not done at a specific time and he would usually do it when inspiration came to him.
He hoped the love of Goans living in the state and those living abroad was with him because that would help him stay motivated and continue to create songs on various issues that afflicted the state.