Exclusive Interview with Mohan Kannan

Q1. Mohan Kannan was known for Agnee and now we hear more Bollywood songs. How
has the journey been?
I’m happy to be known for good music, Agnee or otherwise! It’s been a super journey, and
we’ve released a lot of songs I’ve composed or co-composed with Agnee over the years and
also a lot of film songs I’ve sung. I was quite clear at the beginning of my music career that
the first few songs that came out in my voice had to be my own compositions or Agnee’s, so
I could represent myself correctly as a composer – singer and also my voice the way I
wanted to before singing for other composers. The first Agnee album was the reason Amit
Trivedi and Shankar Ehsaan Loy called me for my first film dubs and then it’s been a steady
journey in films too.
Q2. Do we expect new music on the Agnee front coming out soon?
We’re coming up with our first single for this year, titled Main Aur Tu, in April. We’re really
excited for that. We’re also part of this super show on MXPlayer, and that will release soon
too. Over the year, we hope to release at least 6 new songs from Agnee.
Q3. What is that one major difference you find in the audience acceptance of music when it is independent and when it’s Bollywood?
The difference is more in terms of the reach of Bollywood to all corners of India and most of
the world, so you tend to get a much larger platform when you are a part of Bollywood.
Audience acceptance also is slightly coloured, as sometimes they’ll like a song just because
their favourite acting star is in it, and that kind of thing is rare in non-film music. People who
like any specific non film song or artist are quite true to the artist or song, and like them
purely for the music, and that makes it special.
Q4. How did it feel Singing for a Marathi film? What made you accept it?
I loved the experience.. When Sujay, the director of Kesari, called to ask me to sing it, there
was no question of my saying no as he’s a good friend and we had a great time working with
him in Shala, his first film. Shala was our first Marathi film (although the song was in Hindi)
and I’m glad my first Marathi song as a singer is also in Sujay’s film.
Q5. Did you have to do some homework since it was your first Marathi Song?
Typically, a singer’s homework is to do with learning the tune.. and I usually like to learn the
tune a little less thoroughly as that leaves room for me to improvise in the studio. In this
case, however, it was more about getting the pronunciations right, and that happened at the
studio with the help of Sujay and Prafullachandra, the music director.
Q6. What were the challenges you faced singing for “Tu Chal Re Mana”?
When I’m called to sing a song, I’m expected to emote the lyric in the song in my way. I’ve
always believed music is a strong means of communication, and the audience must feel the
emotion being conveyed cohesively, by the music, the lyric and the singing. So once the
pronunciations were clear to me, and I was getting them right, I concentrated on
understanding the emotion conveyed in each line and delivering them to the best of my
ability. What could have been a lengthy process actually didn’t take much time, thanks to the
fact that the team was full of fun people and everyone helped. It was a super fun time at the
studio and I’m glad the song has turned out the way it has!