Shankar Mahadevan creates a song using AI tool for Google: ‘It is such an inspiring tool’

Shankar Mahadevan made a virtual appearance at Google’s annual I/O developer conference on May 20, held at Mountain View, California.

It seems Shankar Mahadevan is ready to usher in a new phase in the music industry with AI. The singer recently collaborated with Google for the Lyria AI music generator tool and created a song using the tool.

Shankar Mahadevan shared a sneak peek into his work on the AI-generated song Rubaro.

Shankar Mahadevan creates a song using AI

Shankar made a virtual appearance at Google’s annual I/O developer conference on May 20, held at Mountain View, California, US. During the conference, Google shared updates on the new AI products that they are working on, including an AI tool for filmmaking and a tool for music generation.

During the introduction of Lyria 2, Google Research Scientist Jason Baldridge revealed that the platform worked “with musicians to develop a music AI sandbox”.

“It is a tool for professionals to explore the possibilities of our generative music model Lyria, in their work. Let's watch a clip starring legendary Grammy-winning singer and composer Shankar Mahadevan putting the music AI sandbox and Lyria to use,” he said while introducing the Indian singer.

Indian music on the global stage

The video then shows Shankar sitting in his studio, saying, “I am a music composer, singer, producer and a happy man... Working with Sandbox is great. We inputted our requirements and it gave us a bed. We used that bed and we came up with this song”.

The video then takes viewers behind the scenes of the studio, capturing moments as Shankar and his team work together to craft a song titled Rubaro. From selecting the perfect beats to fine-tuning the pitch, the video showcases the creative process behind the song's production.

Talking about creating the song, Shankar mentioned, “For a musician, it is such an inspiring tool. You open a door and you see there’s another room... And then you open another room, and you have another door... That is what AI does”.

Shankar is known for his versatile musical style, spanning Bollywood, devotional music, and classical music. He is known for working on songs such as Maa, Dil Chahta Hai, Kal Ho Naa Ho, Desi Girl, Kajra Re and Uff Teri Adaa.