Sharanya Srinivas

 'Being Unique as An Artist Is Very Important' The Tamil playback singer is part of Rolling Stone India and TuneCore India's editorial campaign, Emerge

Earlier this year, it was announced that Tamil playback singer Sharanya Srinivas – along with Malayali musician and singer Arya Dhayal, Andhra Pradesh’s Damini Bhatla and Kannada rapper Gubbi – were shortlisted as part of Rolling Stone India and TuneCore India’s second edition of the editorial campaign, Emerge. The latest season of the initiative gives the audience a peek into the creative processes of independent artistic voices hailing from various regions in southern India, their inspiration and more.

In this interview with Rolling Stone India, Srinivas talks to us about her early years, standout moments in her career, being part of Emerge and more.

Give us a sense of your early years and how you got into music as well as some of your inspirations while growing up. Of course, coming from a musical household must have played a part.

WSo, I think that while growing up, music has definitely been an integral part of my life. My father [Srinivasan Doraiswam] is a musician. He’s a renowned playback singer down south. During his formative years, I was one or two years old when he just started playback singing. So, he used to be very, very excited, bringing cassettes home of whatever tracks he’d sung. Then he used to play them at home and my mom used to really encourage him. I have very vivid memories of my dad being very excited about just kickstarting his career. He used to be a chemical engineer, and he quit his job and then got fulltime into music. So the inspiration definitely started from there, from my dad. He’s been a huge inspiration in my life, not just in terms of music, but personally, too, he’s my hero.