‘Asar’ singer Sur talks about the remix culture and nepotism in the music industry

After Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, the nepotism debate has spread like wildfire all over the nation. It was not limited only to the film industry,  the heated topic had found its way into the music industry as well.  Well, there were opinions thrown out in the air about the industry, ‘Asar’ singer Sur recently opened up about his thoughts on nepotism.

Talking about it to us, Sur said, “It definitely exists, there’s no denying that. But at the same time, I haven’t been exposed to it as much so I don’t think that the music industry has that much of it as the film industry. If you are a musician, you don’t have to be someone’s daughter or son; a great song or a great singer can pull through without a family bias.

He further added, “The only reason that nepotism is so big in India is because we are a very family type of culture. It very normal if my father is a businessman he’d want me to take over. So why should that be any different in the creative industry?” The singer also called the industry extremely collaborative.

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The ‘Asar’ hitmaker also spoke about the remix culture, “I don’t mind it, because I know that with remixes, the younger audiences get a chance to be exposed to older songs but I don’t think remix culture should be as big as it is. In my experience sometimes you take your music to a company or a record label and they are not interested in your original music. They themselves ask you, ‘oh can you remix this song for us?’. I think if an artist is coming to you saying that I have something original then that should be listened to, you shouldn’t be asking them to make remixes. I think if there are DJs and music producers who enjoy doing it then they can do it, but I think fortunately the remix culture is slowly starting to fade out now it’s not as big as it maybe was and personally, that’s a good thing. I’m glad that we’re seen it less than we used to.” 

When asked if he would do a remix himself, he said, “Yeah, I have done a few remixes in the past and I have also done a lot of covers. If I were to do a remix now, I would only do it if I thought I was doing something really unique and different. I would want to bring something new to the song.” 

Meanwhile, talking about Sur’s debut single ‘Asar’, he spoke to us about how the song came about, “Asar was actually a song that was written about a year and a half ago. Once the lockdown had started in Birmingham I was told that there was a competition that Universal Music are doing with Sterling Reserve any song that gets selected would be released on that platform. I submitted the song and they shortlisted the song as one of their favourites and I was then told that I will have to audition in front of the head of Universal India and Shaan the Bollywood singer.”

He spoke about the process of the making of the song and said that it was all done on Zoom calls, “We shot the whole video during the lockdown. We had to do everything online on Zoom Calls. It was a very strange experience.”

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Talking about the response, Sur said, “It has been overwhelming. I think when you’re writing a song, you like it anyway and you start to assume that people will like it as well. But, the minute it gets released, you start to have your doubts and questioning whether people are going to like this or not. The most common compliment I keep getting is that it doesn’t sound like a typical Punjabi song. The video doesn’t look like a typical Punjabi music video. Somewhere your always trying to do something different, you want that your work should stand out, it should not look or sound like everybody else. Knowing that the song and video is doing that, its a very very good feeling for me.” 

‘Asar’ is Sur’s debut single and it has been garnering a lot of praise already. The song is composed by Bharat Goel and written by Siddhant Kaushal.

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