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Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma: I play the electric guitar after my cabinet meetings
Beyond politics, CM Conrad Sangma strums a different tune by leveraging music as a stress-buster and a means to unify
A few months ago, a video of Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma playing the cover of an Iron Maiden song on an electric guitar became a hit on social media. In an interaction with us in Shillong, he tells us how music "is a getaway for me and helps me relax". He adds, "I've always been into music and I play the electric guitar whenever I get a chance. I love to perform live whenever I am with my cabinet colleagues, after our important meetings and programs. Whenever all of us, colleagues, meet over dinner, I make sure I perform. Music is an integral part of my culture. It helps me because whenever some MLAs are unhappy about something, they listen to my music and forget what they were unhappy about (laughs). I also performed recently at the G20 meeting and all the ambassadors and colleagues really enjoyed it."
The Shillong Cherry Blossom Music Festival is currently underway with a star-studded lineup including Ronan Keating, Ne-Yo, Jonas Blue and Hybrid Theory, alongside several musicians from Meghalaya. Ask if such events are an endeavour to put indiginous musicians from the state on an international stage, and CM Sangma says, "An important part of my strategy is to not look at an activity in isolation. When we do a festival like this, the idea is to not just give our artistes a platform, but also create a roadmap for the future. We have an initiative called the Meghalaya Grassroots Music Program, which gives performing artistes in Meghalaya an opportunity to showcase their talent at an entirely government-funded initiative. Besides putting themselves out their and entertaining the tourists, it also helps the youth to use their energy and talent positively. The artistes who shine at Grassroots get to perform at bigger platforms like Cherry Blossom, which would, in turn, help them get the opportunity to perform at bigger stages across the country and the world. My objective is to create a music economy in Meghalaya."
Explaining what drove him to come up with strategies to boost music in the state, he adds, “Back in the 90s, my band and I didn’t have any studio to record our music. So coming up with more studios is a major part of my strategy." Besides music opportunities, the CM also wants the state to thrive as a location for films: “I want the youth of Meghalaya to get into filmmaking. We want them to try, even if they end up making a film that's a flop. We also want movies to be shot in Shillong. For that (the growth of film culture in the state), we would need more movie theatres. We are offering huge subsidies to encourage people to invest in theatres. Meghalaya is also coming up with its own OTT platform to encourage young content creators to put their work out there.”
