Nikhita Gandhi on Working with KING, Pritam and Making 2023 Full of Hits

On October 23rd, two film songs featuring pop artist Nikhita Gandhi came out – a typically party-friendly stomper “Leke Prabhu Ka Naam” from the action flick Tiger 3 composed by Pritam and also sung by Arijit Singh and the more pensive, humility-invoking “Ordinary Person” from Tamil film Leo, composed by Anirudh Ravichander.

It helps that both movie songs had star power like Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif and Thalapathy Vijay behind them, but Gandhi says that most of the time, she never sees it coming that song becomes a hit. “I never question film music, because sometimes a project doesn’t go through, a song changes… it’s a very film-centric project and not audio-centric. I never think twice about it, so when these two songs came out together, it was a huge surprise for me.” The song “Ordinary Person” with Anirudh built on one of Gandhi’s earliest mainstream Indian cinema music connects, considering he was the second composer she’d worked with (“Oh Oh”) after A.R. Rahman for 2015’s “Ladio” from the film I. With Pritam, however, newer hits and duets with Arijit Singh have propelled Gandhi further into stardom, including “Tere Pyaar Mein” earlier this year from Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar.

In the last decade that she’s started up in film music, Gandhi has sung in Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and her native tongue Bengali along with Hindi and English. The approach has been simple – “Life happens. Your trajectory can take you anywhere.” Her personal listening choices remain more rooted in international artists, leaning towards singing jazz and blues, along with the occasional rock. “I’ve been a very indie soul and even when I was in Chennai and doing dental school, I had no plans of singing in films,” she says.

In her experience, Gandhi has been a go-to choice for Tamil and Telugu songs perhaps exactly because her experiment-seeking, indie roots match with the experimental composing styles heard by the likes of Rahman, Anirudh, Gopi Sundar and Harris Jayaraj. She maintains that there’s no specific reason she’s drawn to any one regional movie industry more than the other. “I think that challenge of cracking a song [in a language] which you cannot even probably speak is also very exciting as an artist,” Gandhi adds.

An important distinction she makes while taking on projects is to never go by the scale of it. “It’s always music first, no matter what. Even with my own music, it’s important to keep exploring your artistry as well,” Gandhi says. For her, there’s “innate musicality” and “applied musicality,” with the latter being the place where most film music falls under. At the end of it, with changing music industry demands, the artist feels that the most important thing for her is to “remain the same person as much as possible.”

Gandhi’s biggest hits in the past when it comes to collaborations have been with hip-hop/pop mainstay Badshah, including “Jugnu,” “Aao Kabhi Haveli Pe,” “She’s On Fire” and “Bad Boy x Bad Girl.” She recalls how she received a text from him. “It said, ‘Hey, it’s Badshah. I wanna do a song.’ I replied saying, ‘Is this the Badshah?’ Because it was just an unknown number with no face. It was so funny, the way the ice broke,” Gandhi says with a laugh.

Interestingly, Badshah was the one who recorded her vocals for “High Hukku” – the same day as “Jugnu” – for KING, which has now appeared on his album New Life. In turn, Gandhi recorded, arranged and designed vocal harmonies on Badshah’s 2023 single “Jawaab.” She’s really excited about the release of the video for “High Hukku,” which she counts among her favorite projects from the year gone by.

As far as collaborators go, it’s also about being on the same wavelength, which only comes through trial and error. Gandhi recounts how she linked up with producer-composer OAFF aka Kabeer Kathpalia for a song during the lockdown in 2020, before the soundtrack for Gehraiyaan came out. “Theoretically, the collaboration would be amazing, but then we just couldn’t crack it. And then he was the one who was like, ‘You know what, I don’t think it’s working out, this song. Let’s do something else.’ That’s very normal, that happens all the time,” she adds. Nevertheless, there are plenty more collaborations in store, including one coming up with singer-composer Raghav Kaushik.

Watch the video for “High Hukku” below.