On the follow-up to his 2018 EP 'Soul Daddy,' the artist takes the acoustic route to sing about suicide
Chennai singer-songwriter Gaman Mamidi. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
While his 2018 EP Soul Daddy was an upbeat collection of songs, Chennai singer-songwriter Gaman Mamidi is much more somber on his new track “Son of God.” Stripping away all the other sonic elements he’d relied on before, the artist sings about mental health and suicide in an anecdotal way over uneasy acoustic guitars and eerily low vocal melodies.
Currently completing a four-year course (remotely) at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mamidi says he consulted with four mental health professionals to write “Son of God” and work on the music video. The crew includes actors Dileep Rangan T. and Ashwini Shenai, associate director Cy Rathnakumar, cinematographer Bargav Sridaar and editor Ashwin Anand. Mamidi says, “This song is personal to me, but it’s talking about someone’s who’s depressed, so I wanted to know ethically, what is the sensitive way to sing about this. Even with the music video, we wanted to know for sure what we can show and what we can’t show.”
The monochrome clip narrates a tale of a male protagonist (portrayed by Rangan) in the midst of his daily life but always drenched, eventually finding his way to the sea. “The character is always wet and no one seems to notice,” he says. Mamidi sings on the track, “Why can’t we see/The bitter parts of glee?” The video was produced by Mamidi and while it was challenging shooting in the midst of a pandemic, they were strict about all protocols.
The singer-songwriter is, like most Indian students enrolled in a course abroad, understandably frustrated about online classes while he’s back in Chennai instead of being in Boston, but the plan is to finish up and become a full-time musician. There are more socially conscious projects on the way, including a film about untouchability. “I want to go and film people from the communities that face this, because I’m from that community,” he says. There’s also another single coming up called “Mango,” for which Mamidi sings from the perspective of the Grim Reaper. “It’s about how death is not a bad thing.”
Watch the video for “Son of God” below. Stream the song here.
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