For years, ‘Raani’ did the rounds of WhatsApp as a forward and just like the grainy, home recording on YouTube, accumulated fans every time someone listened to it. Thousands of messages and requests later, the heart-warming song gets a do-over 10 years after it was written by an older, more experienced Shashwat Bulusu and was released to his tight knit community as a surprise drop on June 26.
Shashwat Bulusu is a singer-songwriter, producer and visual artist from Baroda who for the past few years has shied away from talking about a song he wrote as an impressionable 17-year-old. Countless requests poured in every time he performed, and it isn’t difficult to understand why ‘Raani’ evokes the reaction it does.
The minimally-produced, soothing track with Shashwat’s dulcet vocals is a balm for broken hearts and souls, and accumulated thousands of views and fans for its optimism and melancholy.
“‘Raani’ is a song I wrote as a teenager 10 years ago about finding peace in the mountains,” he explains, adding, “It is an invitation to a friend to give in to the peace of the mountains and all the flora and fauna that they shelter. It is minimally produced to mimic a lullaby or a soundtrack to monsoons.”
The multi-faceted artist who composed for indie film Gamit alongside releasing his Hindi debut project A-side/B-side Aabad in 2022 realised that the more he resisted, the more popular the song seemed to get. He has now embraced the love it continues to receive from fans – and this is a big reason why he wanted to release it.
“This release is the culmination of a decade of the song having a life without an official release,” says Shashwat. “I tried to live in denial of the love it kept receiving but it is time to end this decade-long relationship with ‘Raani’ and give it to the audience. The song belongs to them now,” he states.
A trained classical musician, Shashwat has been steadily establishing a versatile repertoire and reputation, releasing an often dizzying array of musical narratives in both Hindi and English. An avid story-teller through his songs and his live performances, Shashwat’s songs primarily deal with themes of absurdity and self-admission, underpinned with a sense of raw emotion and vulnerability.
It’s perhaps this emotion in ‘Raani’ that drew fans from all over the country, and in a letter to fans, Shashwat shares a vulnerable side of being a musician and their often uneven relationship with their creations.
Shashwat is working on music that he feels is more representative of his artistic personality, and is currently working on a new, sonically-diverse Hindi EP scheduled for release later in the year.
