An exclusive Chat with Tenma, music composer and bandleader of The Casteless Collective.
Magizhchi, a four minute music video from the house of The Casteless Collective, owned by Director Pa. Ranjith is the new talk in town. The lyrics of Magizhchi is spreading faster than wildfire. People in Chennai are humming and nodding their heads as per the rhythm of this musical blockbuster.
What is the actual aim of The Casteless Collective? Is it pure art or an amalgamation of politics and music?
Casteless Collective is a 19-member music band that blends gaana, rap and rock genres in different degrees for the songs which are mainly themed upon social and political issues including caste, gender reservation, agriculture, land rights and other perils of the marginalised. Through this band, we are aiming to create social impact with our music. When we sing, it is also with an aim to provide a voice to the voiceless. Every art is supposed to be an assimilation of entertainment and social responsibility. Even if one part is missing, the art will lose its soul.
Pa. Ranjith started this band. He is the fuel and fire of this entity. What would be his inspiration?
Pa. Ranjith is revealing the naked and bitter truths of the society through all available artistic platform. Basically, he is a painter. From his fine arts career itself, he persistently questioned the social evils of inequality and racial discrimination. When he stepped into the world of cinema, he adorned his works with such social messages with higher vigour and determination. Similarly, he tried to bring artists from a multitude of art forms who follow a similar ideological notion. There is a famous quote by Mao ‘Art is for the people’. Following this grand narrative, he initially hosted a three-day long socio-cultural event ‘Vaanam Arts Festival’, which staged ‘Oru Oppari Show’ to focus on the famous and mesmerizing folk and lament songs genre, Oppari. Ranjith produced a play named ‘Manjal’ that addressed manual scavenging one of the most toxic issues existing in India, Later he stepped into the medium of music. Thus the Casteless Collective was emanated.
How you became a part of this band and ultimately reached at the helm?
Before joining The Casteless Collective, I was part of a collective band named Kurangan. The band was struggling to propagate its views and music among the common public. Then one day Ranjith called and ensured all support to make pure music, which was my breakthrough. He understood what I stood for and my passion and commitment towards music and humanity. Ranjith aimed to use art to empower people by bringing some voice to society and instilling ideas such as equality, diversity and casteless society into people’s mind through the medium of music. In music itself, there is a lot of differences and discriminations. Like who should sing, when and where should sing and what sort of music is respectable and which type is inferior etc.. In a caste-based society like India the division is omnipresent, which is seen in art as well.
Could you please elaborate on the crew members of Casteless Collective?
We are having artists from Chennai, especially from North Madras (Vada Chennai) housing board. Gaana singers, folk musicians, rock and jazz musicians are all part and parcel of this band. together we create hip-hop and rap compositions. There is a stereotype among the people that certain genres of songs and music are only associated with a particular caste or community. Casteless Collective prove them to be wrong. Music is for everyone to create and enjoy, there are no strings attached.
Is The Casteless Collective band demolishing such notional colossus?
Casteless Collective band produce songs for all deprived sections in the society. It deals with different caste or community issues and even about the social evils and current happenings. If you are oppressed by caste, class, community, or even gender then you could relate to our songs. Recently, we have done a song about LGBTQ issue also. Whoever feels that they are continuously marginalised from the mainstream society and oppressed by the system, they need to know that our songs represents a collective mouthpiece for all such victim hoods.
There are a lot of albums and songs in the Casteless Collective Band. Are all these songs emanating from a central concept or each song has a different tale to tell?
Mostly we use to go for a different concept in different songs. Jeni, Assistant Director of Ranjith, Arivu and I used to discuss the topics and issues that are needed to bring to people’s attention. Sometimes, we also go for writing situation based songs. When the time of this general election we released a song named ‘Dabba Dabba’ mentioning the ballet box. Next month band is releasing a song named ‘Vandheri’, which deals with the land rights.
What is the crux of your new blockbuster Magizhchi?
Magizhchi in Tamil means happiness. Initially, Magizhchi was released as an album consisted of 9 songs during Vaanam Arts Festival. The festival was celebrated as a tribute to the social reformers like Karl Marx, E V R Periyar, Ambedkar, Ayyankali and all other leaders who fought against oppression. Later the band thought about doing a music video for the song Magizhchi. Considering the production and marketing cost for a video song, it seems to be a little extravagant for a band like Casteless Collective. But a dream with determination can’t crawl, it has to fly. We flew. Probably, I would say this is the first of this kind, a rap video album which speaks about social evil in a bold and transparent manner.
The video is totally enriched with vibrant colours. Could you please explain the usage of colours in the music video?
Everything and everybody could be represented in different colours. It may symbolise one’s politics and emotions or life. The yellow represents loneliness, green represents harmony and the LGBTQ+ flag is rainbow colours. The Dravidian movement of Periyar is symbolised in black, Communism movement in red, Ambedkar Movement is blue. We tried to symbolise all these together to communicate with colours in a form celebration in the music video. Colours are not merely aesthetics, it speaks and conveys meanings. In a bold and explicit manner.
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