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Armaan Malik on audience judging Indian singers doing English songs: In our country, we think lesser of our own artistes
Armaan Malik talks about how Indian audience love international singers singing in Hindi, but criticise when it's the other way around
The recent collaboration between singer Ed Sheeran and Arijit Singh on Sapphire became an instant hit, with praise being showered on Ed’s attempt at Hindi lyrics. While he is happy about the collaboration, singer Armaan Malik states that when the reverse happens, the Indian audience is a bit judgemental.
“Indian audience has this preconceived notion that Indian artistes don't sing English well. However, there are so many of us who sing English beautifully, sometimes even better than some of the English artistes. But we just have this feeling in our country where we think of our own people lesser,” says the singer who recently released his song Baari Baari, adding, “Our biggest drawback is that our Indian audience loves to bring our own people down. I don't know why it is, but it is inherently in our nature.”
But Armaan Malik feels things are heading towards a better situation. “I can see a change now with a lot of people championing Indian artistes because a lot of international artistes are collaborating with Indian artistes. So, suddenly it's cool to support Indian artistes,” he says.
While the singer believes it’s a great time to be an Indian artiste with so many global collaborations and acceptance happening, he also takes credit for being one of the firsts to do that. “I did it at a time when no one else was doing it. I kind of opened that portal, which I am very happy I did. In 2020, when pandemic hit and I'd released my debut English single Control, that was the starting point for people viewing an Indian singer differently. I was not then looked at just a playback singer,” he insists.
Armaan asserts that it took him a while to venture into English music because he didn’t have anyone to look up to doing the same growing up. “I remember I had this conversation with my father at the age of 14 that I wanted to be an English pop singer, and he was like ‘ye kahaan se aaya?’ He gave me a great advice, and told me to focus on Hindi music and Bollywood for now, make the following, build yourself as an artiste, become big, then do it. I think that was the greatest advice I ever got. I built my whole career first in my home country, in my home language, and then took the decision to do English pop music. I dreamt of doing this at 14, but I had to wait 10 years to put out my first English song. When I was 14, if someone else was already doing it, I wouldn't had to wait that long. So, when I did it, a lot of kids came up and say thank you as it gave them confidence,” he says, adding, “The next big global song has got to come from India, and it will happen in the next two to three years.”
