Shrae Addresses Chronic Illness on New Song ‘Strawberry Pancakes’

After releasing her effervescent debut single “A Game For Two” in 2022, Mumbai-based singer-songwriter Shrae graduated from music school and is now a faculty member at the same institute, the city-based NMIMS School of Performing Arts. She’s also been writing music with her band Jazzafools and played a number of gigs across India. She says, “I also composed music for some projects and did some very interesting sessions, it’s been a hectic yet wholesome year.” Now, Shrae is out with her sophomore single in the shape of the smooth “Strawberry Pancakes.”

The artist wrote the song as an exercise for her lyric writing class last year. “My object was ‘painkillers’ because they resonated the most to me at that point of time in life,” says the singer-songwriter. Through the song, Shrae sings about her chronic illness called endometriosis. “The more I kept it within me, the more it needed to get out from my system and voila! ‘Strawberry Pancakes’ is a song about hope, resilience and pain. I hope it brings some kind of awareness in any little way possible.” The track includes Shrae’s brand of jazz, soul and blues while her powerful vocals stand out across the song.

Shrae worked with producer/multi-instrumentalist Raag Sethi at Ahmedabad’s Compass Box Studio. Sethi contributed guitar and bass to the song while drummer Shivang Kapadia and keyboardist Kandarp Kavishwar also performed on the track. “It [the recording process] was so much fun because we added so many things spontaneously and it just somehow worked,” says Shrae.

Shrae is lining up more music to be released this year while also putting out material with her band Jazzafools too. I almost disappeared last year after releasing one song and I don’t want to do that again,” she says.

Stream “Strawberry Pancakes” on Spotify below and on other platforms.