We never thought that we would be able to create an animated music video for Beech Raaste: Sulaiman

Salim Merchant of music composer duo Salim-Sulaiman, says that music labels work according to their business model, which is fair, but not giving a chance to new artistes, is not fair to them.

Music composer duo Salim Sulaiman have been part of the Indian music industry for almost three decades, and without having any inside connections with anybody in the industry, they’ve managed to make a mark for themselves. Hence, naturally, they find themselves on the opposite side of the nepotism and favouritism debate. While Sulaiman believes “hard work is everything”, his brother and the other half of the duo, Salim, agrees that favouritism does exist in this industry much like it does in every other sector. “There is a factor of favouritism when it comes to labels giving opportunities to artistes who are signed with them, and that is fair I guess. It’s their business model, but it’s not fair to artistes who are amazing and need to be heard and recognised. And that’s why, we have started our record label for a beautiful creative community to come together where we give equal opportunities to known and unknown singers,” says Salim.

Salim-Sulaiman’s latest track Beech Raaste, released under their own label, has already crossed one million views within a week of its release.

Since the lockdown, a lot of independent singles have been released and have done relatively better. And Sulaiman feels that the non-existence of Bollywood music for almost four months now has helped the genre. “Earlier, producers wanted to release music to enhance their films, but if there are no film releases, then no Bollywood music is releasing either, and that’s given a great window of opportunity for independent musicians to be able to showcase their music on various platforms,” adds Sulaiman. However, Salim says that “indie music has been existing for a while now”. “In fact, I would probably say 40% of the music that you consume today is indie music. Today you consume all your music on streaming platforms and YouTube. So, it doesn’t matter whether it’s some song, of course it gets popular when it’s a film song but today, listeners look for song, and its fine if it’s not a film song. It can have its own popularity,” adds Salim.

The composers feel that although the lockdown has a lot of negative aspects, “it’s a great time to make music and perform virtual concerts”. “We can work on quality now. Things are going to be a little difficult for composers and performers, but we just have to reinvent ourselves,” says Salim, to which Sulaiman adds, “I expect a lot more independent music releases now.”