Neethusha – Fighting the System

Neethusha is a singer/songwriter from India, who has been performing with her band all over the country for over 6 years and is now releasing her original music videos. She can ultimately be described as a hybrid of all of her favorite artists including Coldplay and Savage Garden, to solo female artists like Shania Twain and Celine Dion. She had originally embarked on a career as an engineer in the Bangalore office of Deloitte. This seems like its a far distance from singing and performing on stage. But that was not a life that she felt she had intended for herself, so she followed her heart and took her passion out to the world.

​What would you be doing today if not for this interview? Where do you perform or sing? When did you realize you wanted to be a singer? When did your singing career begin?

Well, we are all acquainted with the current status of the world- lockdown! I have been using this time wisely to focus on a lot of things I otherwise don’t get the peace of mind to do. I have been spending a lot of time reading books on personal growth, taking a few courses online that I have always wanted to. I generally perform with my band for corporate events within the country- I seem to have developed a niche there over the last few years.

I started writing songs at the age of 14; at the time I had no idea I would get the opportunity to pursue my dream of being on concert stages, coming from a conservative place and community. My journey started after I moved to Bangalore for work and approached my office band to be a part of it; when people started to hear my voice, I slowly started getting more opportunities to sing. So roughly around 2011!

As a woman, how is the competition in your industry?

I believe regardless of whether you are a woman or man, you will find competition in this industry. Because you are up against other artists. But to answer your question literally, there are some fabulous female singers I have known and met in my life who constantly motivates me to work on my own skills. It’s all healthy competition!

What are the challenges in this career you face?

I think the first and the biggest challenge we face as independent artists, that too artists whose forte is singing in English, is that we do not have good, experienced and successful labels to back us up. We don’t have a proper system to push our distribution and promotions. Most of us are DIY musicians today, but after you have done everything possible within your limit, sometimes you need a framework or an external hand to push you forward further.

In India, music industry is more or less a subset of the film industry as every movie comes with 5-10 songs of its own. The push the film music gets is so aggressive that almost all other forms of music is just lost to the listeners. This is another obstacle we have been facing.

Thirdly, with the advent of myriad of social media platforms out there today, and any content having the possibility to go viral, for good or bad, it has become quite hard to stand out in the clutter.

Having said all that,  all it takes is the willingness to KEEP working hard, the determination to never give up. Endure the struggle; I believe one fine day it will come through. I have had plenty of reasons to give up. I am still trying!