SITAR WITH A VOICE

Coming off her seventh GRAMMY nomination—for the EP Love Letters—Anoushka Shankar has released a single that combines sitar and spoken word to satirize patriarchy’s demands from a woman. She speaks to SUMEET KESWANI on her latest work, the GRAMMYs, lockdown skills, and travel.

- SUMEET KESWANI

What prompted you to make your latest single, Sister Susannah?

I wrote this song along with Alev Lenz and the poet Nikita Gill, who has written for music the first time. Over the past year, there have been many stories of women’s experiences that have brought certain things to the forefront again for the women in my life. There’s an understanding among us about how universal issues of abuse, manipulation, and control can be. The pandemic has disproportionately affected women, particularly those in abusive situations. I felt like having a song where people can connect to that issue, or a sense of empathy, or a desire to do something about it. Art has a funny way of doing that in a way that talking can’t.

What’s next for you after this single?

Sister Susannah is part of Love Letters P.S., which will contain one more new song and also two remixes of songs from Love Letters. I’ll be releasing these over the next few months. After that, hopefully, there will be more live shows in Europe in the diary.

Love Letters feels like your most intimate work yet. Was it cathartic or uncomfortable to put yourself out there?