Melody from New York to Hyderabad

A 17-year-old Hyderabadi girl Aakanksha who has shaken the audience with her debut song ‘Take me away’ along with her team members at New York strives to shine in Hollywood. As a part of completing her project at the University of New York the team happened to come up with this beautiful video song that gave them immense response. Aakanksha shares her experience in a freewheeling chat.

What is the story behind composing the song ‘Take me Away’?
I joined the summer programme at the New York University and there are 36 students in a group that got split into groups of five. Our final project was to make a song from scratch, so basically it is all about creating lyrics, production, and a music video. We were a group named ‘Red Element’ and we came up with the type of music that we wanted to do.

One of our friends did the production of the music and me and another friend wrote the lyrics of the song. I sang and the other friend rapped over the song. We also created a story plot of how to go about doing the song like where to shoot at New York etc. It was a four-week programme and at the end, this song became our project. We happened to upload it on YouTube, and we got good views for it.

How do you feel about your song going viral?
I am really proud of all the response and the views. I am inspired to do some more music like this in the future.

Are there any plans ahead?
I am performing in different venues in the month of October. They are not very big but I am getting a chance to perform for people.
Any plans to perform here in India?
I lived in Hyderabad for eight years and moved back to America during my ninth standard. Next summer, when I graduate from high school, I will have three months of vacation so; I might come to Hyderabad and perform.

Are you planning to write or sing a song for women in specific?
Yes! Definitely I am totally women-empowered. I would like to see more of women in the music industry. The feminist chain is growing in the Hollywood industry, but I would like to see more of it in India. I think personally I am more interested in the music industry in America.

I still love Indian music, I am multilingual I know languages like Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, English, Spanish etc., and would want to sing in these languages. I love all kinds of cultural music and would love to incorporate that into my music and represent Indian women in the Hollywood industry.

I would like to say that you have only one life and if you are really passionate about what you want to do, you just have to follow your dream and do it.