In an exclusive interview with The Pioneer, musician Shady Mellow discusses his most recent EP, Pushing Up Daisies. After competing on MTV Hustle 3 as the North-East champ, he became well-known
Tejal Sinha
Independent artist Shady Mellow—who rose to fame after appearing on MTV Hustle Season 3—released his EP Pushing Up Daisies. The EP, which is produced by Bhushan Kumar, presents Shady Mellow as a bright future star in the hip-hop industry. The EP features a collection of four tracks, each offering a unique blend of hip-hop and rap. The tracks Love Letters, Pareshan, Lost & Found and Ret Ke Mahal each present their own unique emotional depth and storytelling, giving listeners a glimpse into different aspects of Shady Mellow’s musical journey.
His humble beginnings go back to the time when he was around 13 or 14. While it was a time when he realised he wanted to get into music, at the same time, he was also good in his academics. Without any training in music, he learned the guitar by himself. “I never asked my father or anyone to give me formal music training,” recalls the MTV Hustle fame. “I wanted to see it all for myself. ‘Kahan tak leke jaa sakte hai’. I started experimenting and I got into hip-hop music. I felt there were a lot of scales, or even Raags. If your vocabulary, diction and pronunciation are good, then you can do it.”
Shady, throughout the entire process, became a natural hip-hop artist. And thus, when it came to his latest EP, Pushing Up Daisies, choosing hip-hop or rap music as the main genre was a no-brainer. In this, though he had experimented with all the forms and genres, only Pareshan, he says, is a purely hip-hop song in the EP. Though none of the songs are very purely hip-hop, they do have that essence of hip-hop because of his true self as a hip-hop artist.
Speaking of emotions and storytelling elements in these tracks, he goes on to share, “In Pareshaan, you will see the journey of a person very confused and stressed with life. But at the end of the song, the burning turns out to be a metaphor for him, burning all his self-doubt and insecurities. Just like a phoenix rising from the ashes, he rises again and tries to find a newer self.” The track, in a way, defines his journey. Personally, “I have found my identity in music. I’m a gold medalist in engineering; I’m an IT engineer. I did not know music was my core, but as I let go of my insecurities, even though I had a job in my hand and offers, I let go of all the securities I had and chose the path that was less taken. People had recommended me not to take it, but again, that’s why some people know me. Today people know me as Shady Mellow because of the decision that I took at that time, and that burning in my life gave me a new identity.”
Talking of the other three tracks, Love Letters is a song for one to enjoy, he says, while Ret Ka Mehal is again about how life is temporary and how waves come and go.
However, Lost and Found Again is a journey-defining track of his. As we ask about it, he shares, “Lost and Found was where I did the real storytelling. It’s a ‘kaccha chittha’, a balance sheet of my entire life—of where I came from. There was a time when I was invited to big shows; however, these shows did not pay me and I had to walk for many kilometres to perform on these shows. Today I am paid a good amount of money to perform in the journey of earning money, just like I say in the line, ‘Main shows karun lakkhon mai par lakkhon mai they longe, milte they bass yaadon mai’. It defines how I have lost a lot of people in the process who I wished were a part of my success.”
Beyond any doubt, Lost and Found has been his personal favourite track and for all the obvious reasons. Recalling the personal anecdote from the song, he shares, “When you listen to a song, there’s this part, which is for my Badi Ma. She was the one who called me when I was in the lowest phase of my life, and for some personal reason, I recorded the call, which was in Assamese. Many people would not understand it, but it had true emotions and meanings. It was very deep and emotional, and I wanted people to feel it, and they have actually done it. I make art in the process of making honest music and so it will help somebody going through a similar phase. Things might differ, but emotions are all the same.”
