Ricky Kej: 'The third Grammy feels absolutely surreal'

Ricky Kej won his third Grammy, at the 65th Grammy Awards this week. (Photo: Jae C Hong/Invision/AP)

Ricky Kej has all the reasons to be happy right now. He is basking in the glory of his third big win. This year, at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, his album Divine Tides with Stewart Copeland won the Best Immersive Audio Album. His first and second Grammys were in the Best New Age Album category in 2015 and 2022. Kej, 41, who has a degree in dentistry but pursued music, and is also an environmentalist, remains the youngest Indian to win a Grammy. In an exclusive interview, the musician talks about his win, how classical musicians are the true ambassadors of Indian culture worldwide, the need for music education and more. Edited excerpts:

(From left) Ricky Kej, Herbert Waltl, and Stewart Copeland pose in the press room with the award for best immersive audio album for 'Divine Tides' at the 65th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday. (Photo: Jae C Hong/Invision/AP)

Third Grammy! How does it feel, individually and as a representative of Indian music on the global stage?
It feels amazing, no words to describe how I feel about this win especially because it is in this category — Best Immersive Audio Album. It’s not a genre category where you are competing against albums and songs that are similar to yours, it is a category which cuts across genres. For example, we were nominated against Christina Aguilera, a legend, and against The Chainsmokers, who are said to be the highest paid DJs and one of the biggest acts on the planet. And we managed to win! So, it is just an amazing experience to see that Indian music is standing up to the mainstream Western music and actually winning.

Is this becoming a habit, this winning, the Grammy no less... was the excitement more controlled this time?
The excitement is always extremely high, because at the end of the day, this is the biggest award for music that the world can offer. The excitement is always high to be recognised for your work because Divine Tides is a part of me, a piece of me and I have put everything into that album —  all of my creativity, time, entire soul, and my heart is in the album.  To see this album being successful on an international stage it’s just very heartwarming. The happiness and excitement can never be any lesser despite this being the third win. In fact, probably it was even more.

Would you say that Indian classical music have broken more frontiers globally than, say, Indian film or other kinds of music?
I believe that Indian classical music is absolutely timeless. Of course, contemporary forms of both south and north Indian music are there and when it comes to Indian film music, yes it is popular all over the world, but it is so mainly among the Indian diaspora only. When famous composers, singers go anywhere in the planet, they are able to fill up stadiums but, at the same time, the people who show up are mainly people from within the Indian diaspora. And that is because Indian film music has very rarely broken cultural barriers and there are very few examples of that. Whereas when it comes to Classical music — look at Pandit Ravi Shankar, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Ustad Sultan Khan and so many other classical musicians; when they perform abroad, the people who show up are all local audiences from the respective countries. And that is because these classical musicians have actually broken cultural barriers and they are spreading our culture far and wide. They are reaching newer and newer audiences who end up appreciating Indian culture and learning more about India through the music that they perform. So, I believe that Indian classical music, which is considered to be niche by many, is pretty mainstream in this particular way. And I think the whole country is benefiting a lot from our Indian classical musicians because they are the truest and the best ambassadors when it comes to Indian culture worldwide.

Towards that end, where do you think music education is lacking in India?We need a great infrastructure in place for children to learn music at the college level. That would be absolutely essential simply because it is not only for children to learn music in a very professional fashion with great infrastructure, facilities and teachers, but also, if this kind of massive infrastructure is in place, just like how you would have it in an engineering or a medical college, then the parents would feel a lot more confident to send their children to have a formal education in music. And when parents see all this infrastructure and also the possibility of children going to a legitimate college for a music degree, then they would feel a lot more confident that music is not just a hobby, it is a legitimate profession.

Why do you think children need to know the basics of music?
Everyone learns biology and mathematics in school but that does not mean everyone becomes a doctor, or mathematician — they just have a basic knowledge. It should be the same with music. Children can benefit a lot from learning music not only for the art form, but for their cognitive capabilities, reasoning and life skills. All of this can come through learning music. Not every child has to become a professional musician, but every child should have a basic knowledge of the art form. Then, as a musician, I will not have the need to dumb down every single song because the audience will not appreciate the art. But if there are children learning music then you have an inbuilt audience in the country who understand the art. Then I can add complexity and create music which is a little more esoteric because there will be people who will appreciate it. This, I think, is really important.