One of the most talented and youthful musicians working in the Indian music scene is Armaan Malik. For his 27th birthday, he put his single tune, "Tu/You," (the third one from India) on Spotify. The singer also became the first Indian artist to perform on the Global Spin Series by Recording Academy/GRAMMYs, having performed an acoustic version of the song "You," which is a Hindi translation of the well-known English ballad by Armaan Malik. While waiting impatiently for the proper moment to perform nearly 50 English songs one at a time, Armaan has regularly released chart-topping music in a variety of languages.
Armaan Malik believes he has slowly begun this era of music for himself and is enjoying the process. "With the stuff that I'm doing independently right now and like English songs and Hindi singles that I'm putting out, it's my story," he says, "I'm telling what I want to say; I'm telling it the way I want to say it. It's being produced musically also in the way that I feel like I want this is what I want the Armaan Malik sound to be. So I think the beginning of that era of the real, I would say Armaan Malik pop sound that I've wanted to do for so many years. 'Control' marked that and it was the beginning of it. If I had not done, be it a 'Control' or an 'Echo' or a 'You'; like the Ed Sheeran team, they've heard you and that's when they probably even wanted this collaboration to happen because it's not that they are not listening to these artists. They definitely are diving into the discography of the artists that they're approaching to do a collaboration with. So if and because Ed Sheeran is involved, and he is a very big artist, they want to make sure that the artist that they're choosing is someone who is doing meaningful and artistic work. I'm sure they must have dived into 'You' and 'Control'. But if I had not released those songs, they wouldn't have something to listen to. They would have heard my Bollywood stuff and probably judged it in a different manner because that's not something that they hear on a daily basis. This is something that an Indian artist is doing which is very global sounding but yeah, has an essence of like, you know, where I come from also."
With mainstream recognition in the country and his rapid growth in pop music is rapid. Armaan Malik does hope for that Grammy win someday. He doesn't deny that it is not something on his goal list but he is not particularly aiming for it. He wants to grow further as an artist and hopes that the Grammy happens organically someday. "A musician would be lying if they say that they don't have Grammys as a goal, and as something that they really want to achieve. So I would definitely say that I am wanting to hold that trophy in my hand one day, and I hope that day is soon," he adds.
"I'm just working hard not only towards that goal but a lot of goals. I know that if I focus on what I want to do with the music or the sound that I'm creating, that will happen as a byproduct. All the goals that have been achieved so far. I've never been like 'Okay, I want this, and I'm gonna go fo for it.' Yeah, that has been there with my head that I want to do all these things. But the main goal is always to create amazing music that can speak to a lot of people and as a byproduct of that all the amazing achievements that happen, happen. I'm definitely looking forward to the day that I hold a Grammy in my hand. It's my mom's dream. It's everyone's dream. We've seen so many amazing artists already holding that in their hands, be it Ricky Kej, be it AR Rahman, and multiple other artists doing world music as well. I really want to see Indian pop music from our country, winning something at the Recording Academy will be a very big moment," he concludes.
