Usha Uthup: ‘Music Is Not My Business, Communication Is’

At the end of our interview with legendary singer Usha Uthup, she signs off with a wonderfully hilarious anecdote about a time she had a “difficult audience.” She was singing at a five-star hotel in New Delhi. “It was all jazz and I sang a lot of songs which everybody enjoyed. The dancefloor got full, with people who were listening,” she says. There was one man who kept shouting, ‘Daler Mehndi!’ as a request for a song from the Punjabi pop icon. Uthup adds, “I kept saying, ‘Haan zaroor gaaungi, thode der ke baad (Yes surely I will sing his songs, after some time)”

As the singer and her band reached the end section of their performance, the Daler Mehndi fan, it seems, stayed persistent in his request. “I said I’ll definitely sing Daler Mehndi, but on one condition – the next time you go to a Daler Mehndi show, please remember to say, ‘Usha Uthup! Usha Uthup!’ the same way. That just broke the ice,” she adds.

In what should be called a performing masterclass, during Uthup’s rendition of the jazz song “Summertime,” her penultimate song, she specifically called out the person who made Daler Mehndi request and worked in “Na Na Na Re” sung by Mehndi in 1997 and worked in a bit of scat vocals too. “The crowd went absolutely wild. So there’s no question of a bad audience, it’s up to you to make it good,” she adds.

Before we’d started our chat, Uthup was taking a few sips of her soup between interviews and she was immediately back in her element by the time we ask her how she’s doing. She begins with salutations in several languages – “Hi, namaskaram, sat sri akal, salamalekum” – a testament to her global citizen outlook and also having earned an audience across age groups, geographies and more.

Uthup is the powerhouse voice who croons everything from jazz standards like “Summertime” to Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” and her disco songs like “Hari Om Hari,” “Ramba Ho Ho Ho Samba” and “Auva Auva Koi Yahan Nache” from Eighties Bollywood. The original mashup queen before it found favor on YouTube, expect medleys aplenty when Uthup performs at the upcoming 15th edition of NH7 Weekender in Pune on Dec. 14, 2024.

Fully familiar with the long-running multi-genre music festival (“I’m a very alive and alert person, so yes I know NH7 is a huge festival for togetherness and for like-minded people,” she says), Uthup says she would’ve been sad if she’d never got a chance to play. “People think that it’s only this or that or the other, but I’ve always said music has no barriers of caste, color, creed, religion, gender, language, age, nothing,” she says.

That’s why, since the Eighties, she’s often opened her sets with a cover of “I Believe In Music,” the pop song released in 1970 by American singer-songwriter Mac Davis. Uthup reinforces through the song that music is universal, and “love is the key.” She quotes the song and adds, “People who believe in music are the happiest people I’ve ever seen.”

Uthup is a big draw at NH7 Weekender, but she understands the way a multi-stage, multi-genre festival works. To that end, the singer plans to belt out a “mixed bag of different kinds of music” that she’s had in her set for long – from Adele’s “Skyfall” to “Flowers” (which are included because Uthup knows exactly how well they’ve fared on YouTube). She adds, “I’ll be singing some of the retro music as well.”

Within the first few bars of a song playing out, Uthup says she loves to gauge the audience. “I would know if there are Bengalis, or if there are people from South India or anyone from Goa, then I probably would include [songs in their languages] but all that would not be planned. We come with a list of maybe about 30 songs, and then play around with the list, because I’ll be in front knowing who’s in the audience,” she says.

This method has been honed by Uthup for 55 years, ever since she sang at the erstwhile nightclub Nine Gems in Chennai (then Madras). “I was probably singing the second or third night there. There were lots of Tamil people there, of course. I realized when I sang ‘Fever’ [made famous by singer Peggy Lee in 1958] or ‘Bésame Mucho’ [Bolero song], people loved it. But the minute I realized there were Tamil people in the crowd, I sang the only Tamil song I knew at the time,” she says. Uthup breaks into the opening lines from the 1957 song “Pambara Kannaale Kaadhal Sangadhi Sonnaale” from Tamil movie Manamagan Thevai. “The whole atmosphere changed, it was completely magical. When you touch a chord in somebody’s heart – in a language in which they think and connect – it completely changes,” she adds.

From Bombay to Calcutta to corporate shows today, Uthup says she can dig into Goan songs or Marathi songs. It reflects her belief that in the larger sense, “we are all citizens of the world, but it’s wonderful to say, ‘Thank god we’re born Indian.’” There’s at least 17 different languages in which Uthup sings, which allows her to be booked for all kinds of concerts. “I learned very early in life that when you connect with the language of the people – there’s no barrier in language – but there is a certain musicality that every language brings with it, and I think that is what is so important,” the singer adds.

Perhaps Uthup’s superpower is connecting with audiences. She’s worked hard on it, which is why she says she’s never been met by blank stares or the like. “I would say there have been difficult audiences. Sometimes you do so many things to please them – I believe the audience is what makes you – but then to get that mesmerizing feeling, I have to work more than three songs. Sometimes, it’s less than one song,” she says.

Uthup believes that “the song is much bigger than the singer” and will live on. Her job, then, is not so much being just a musician. “Music is not my business, communication is. So I’m always trying to communicate better,” she says.

Get NH7 Weekender 2024 Pune tickets here.