What’s the best way to stir people into becoming the change they want to see? This big question has no one answer. What’s beyond doubt, however, is that music has been one of the most powerful mediums for inspiring change for a long time.
Ricky Kej learnt this when he met local communities in Kiribati and Araku Valley. The three-time Grammy Award winner was struck by how well he could connect with people through music. This made him reach out to his friends and the result was My Earth Songs.
One would expect sounds of nature, animals and the wind to be part of the music Ricky Kej produced in the last decade. When asked why not? Ricky said it’s like taking a photograph or painting a portrait. While a picture offers a perfect representation of a person or a place, a painter has the option to interpret it. “The painter takes a little bit of soul and character from that person into painting, so there’s a lot more interpretation and a lot more art,” he wrote in his memoir titled In Tune With Life.
“That’s how I treat music. Instead of taking sounds from Nature, I try to interpret those sounds of Nature through the bansuri, tabla, drums, guitar, sitar and the human voice,” he emphasised. He was inspired by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 where he translated the sounds of Nature into musical notes to create his masterpieces.
Published in late 2024, In Tune With Life is a deeply intimate account of Ricky’s personal and highly acclaimed musical journey. It also reads like a travelogue depicting vivid pictures of remote and popular places music took him to all around the world. As a United Nations Ambassador, Ricky has had his shows at most of the UN’s major gatherings.
Music for Nature
Interestingly it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who put the thought of exploring music for raising environmental awareness into Ricky Kej. Ricky met the PM in March 2015 soon after he won his first Grammy. “I entered the PM’s office as a composer and left as an ambassador for the environment.”
Since then, Ricky’s contribution to environmental music has been immense. It started with his first Nature album PM Modi released at the COP 21 Climate Conference in Paris in 2015. His goal was clear – making uplifting albums that inspire environmental consciousness.
Ricky had to make a choice – activist music or inspiring music. He chose the latter because he believes that long-term change can come only when people are inspired.
Ricky writes how optimistic he is about climate change. He hates the doom and gloom and people-shaming narrative. “The biggest problem with us as a species is thinking that someone else will make a difference. We wait for agents in the top-down system to make that difference. But the truth is, the only way we can bring about meaningful change is by actually changing our own behaviour.”
And that change can be brought about, he says, by love. He quotes Baba Dioum who said: “In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand and we will understand only what we are taught.”
Ricky strongly believes, like the Green Literature Festival’s mission, that the problem is not about lack of awareness, but how to translate awareness into action. “Music and the arts are the best catalysts to convert this awareness into action.”
Wild Karnataka is one of Ricky’s most cherished success stories. The film had Sir David Attenborough speaking all over his music. It was the first natural history documentary feature film released in theatres in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Chennai. It did better than Bollywood films released in mid-January 2020. The Bengaluru boy was overjoyed when he was asked to premiere this film at the UN headquarters in New York.
In Tune With Life shows how hard work, a strong work ethic, an enterprising and people-friendly approach, and a bit of timely support from the family, can add up to making a dream come true. Often, they are not enough. What has a higher chance of long-term success is a conscious choice of what one does not want to do. Ricky was clear he would not do film music even though it brought more money and fame. He chose a niche and made it big globally.
Ricky has many musical years ahead of him to pursue his passion projects. And hopefully, along with science and politics, he will be pleased if music can make the world friendlier, greener and harmonious.
Ricky’s memoir is currently for private circulation only. Email music@rickykej.com for a free copy.
