Shashaa Tirupati and Chinmayi Sripaada Call Out To Humanity on ‘Yezhundhu Vaa’

Often, a song that’s meant to evoke action will feature grandiose production and charging, in-your-face vocals to rouse the senses. Mumbai-based Shashaa Tirupati’s latest Tamil song “Yezhundhu Vaa” (Rise up) is, as the singer-songwriter and playback singer describes, “a blanket statement towards speaking up.”

Featuring the widely outspoken singer Chinmayi Sripaada, the song instead offers a soothing and comforting tone throughout, playing to Tirupati’s strength of providing airy vocals. But the vocalists sing not to be “all didactic and preachy.” Tirupati says, “There’s a softer, more vulnerable side compositionally relating to subdued spirit and trauma which opens up and gets a voice when another entity, often co-existing within the self, becomes a medium, shoulder and hand. The melody transforms from creating a sense of lack of control and barrenness to arising and achieving a sense of fulfilment.”

Sripaada, for her part, was approached in November last year for the song. She says it’s important that women create a safe space to be comfortable about speaking out or even seeking justice. “To say that ‘this is a comforting, safe space for speaking out’ is a great message to convey via a song,” the multilingual singer adds.

While Tirupati says it was a big “blessing” to have Sripaada involved in the project, it was the latter’s openness to talk about the country’s affairs and her previous stance on outing sexual assaulters in the Tamil film industry that made her the obvious choice. Sripaada jokes that while recording, Tirupati fangirled over her. “I wasn’t used to that kind of adulation from a person I was working with. It was very new to me and very sweet. At some point, it also became added pressure that I needed to live up to her adulation,” she says with a laugh.

The accompanying music video proved more of a challenge for “Yezhundhu Vaa,” considering it was an independent project. The slickly shot, metaphor-heavy video doesn’t soften when it comes to showing scars or wounds. Tirupati says, “The video represents a power play between two sides of the same person: the darker, more subdued self versus the more optimistic, healing side, both of which reside in us.” It was a bigger hurdle to clear when it came to securing funding to make the music video, but Tirupati hopes that more of her and Sripaada’s fans from their film music work support their independent projects, because “we operate solely on our own.”

“Yezhundhu Vaa” will also be released in Hindi as “Roothi Hui” on Tirupati’s upcoming EP Stitched. Tirupati adds, “It’s tentatively due for release in April 2020 if all goes as per plan.”

Watch the video below.