Ever since I started making music, my name was too hard for people to say.
So they wanted to change the spelling of the name and I was like, "I'm not going to butcher
my name because you can't say it."
You know, like that's crazy.
I realized that I had to go make a place for me.
It was hard growing up not seeing anyone Indian, like, I think the only Indian person that
existed in American pop culture was Apu from "The Simpsons" and he was like a caricature
of Indian people.
I loved Britney Spears.
I loved Christina Aguilera and I loved all these people, but that definitely was damaging
for me as a child because none of them represented who I was.
The music I make is like a fusion of definitely hip-hop, tribal, rhythmic kinds of things
and an Eastern influence, melodically so.
It's like a genre, kind of like Bollyhood, kind of like a little bit hood, but a little bit Indian.
As a child I studied three of the five classical styles of Indian dance.
It's my first relationship with art and I learned about rhythm through classical dance.
So then I took that and I was like, "Well, what if I use these devices and I apply some
English in there, make it a rap song," kind of what I grew up on being an American kid
growing up here being influenced so much by hip-hop, by people like Missy Elliot and people
like Timbaland that, like, are fearless with their fusion.
So I was like, "Okay, what if we do, like...
[RAPPING]
And it was just like so exciting
that I realized that they are the same and that kind of started me on this, like, search
to, like, make this fusion music.
With new artists, I think there's always a challenge
for them to succumb to what society wants.
Everyone wants to be able to say, "That's the next X, that's the next Y."
Raja's coming into this industry as incomparable.
I don't think she's going to bend to what people want to hear, but she's going to create
something that people are going to yearn to hear.
So Mom, how do you feel about me putting the Kuchipudi and Bharathanatyam in pop music?
Tell the truth.
You worry.
She always asks me, she'll be like, "We really like it, but like are the people going to like it?
Are the American people going to like it?"
She's, like, always concerned.
I'm glad she's doing it because she is Indian and, you know, yeah...
The songwriting process for me has changed over the years.
I really feel like melody is king and I understood that through, like, traveling the world.
You know, you see people that speak different languages, but they're all singing along to
the song.
So the melody is what moves them and the language is secondary.
So for me, when I write now, I just try to channel the melodies first.
Once that melody is set, I let it tell me what the words are.
Alright, let me try again.
I always view myself almost like a seed from the motherland that's, like, planted in the
new soil.
My parents, even though they came in the '70's, they've lived in America longer than they
lived in India now.
So it's always confusing to me when people ask me, "When are you going to go home?" or
something like that.
I'm like, "I'm born in Southern California.
I am home."
I did dye my hair blonde a lot when I was a kid and I really, like, kind of tried to
push my Indian heritage to the side because I didn't see a place where it could really be.
It was a hard battle that I went through.
When I signed my publishing deal for the first time, to be like an official songwriter, I
really put my artist stuff to the side for, like, almost like two years.
I really didn't write things necessarily for me.
I would write songs, like, "If Christina would sing this or if Demi Lovato would sing this,"
and I would just write songs outside of my own perspective, outside my own voice, but after
two years of doing that, I would be writing these things that were fresh and different
and then they would get to the point where they were like, "This is so awesome, but who's
going to sing it?" and that was like, "Me."
Like, that's when realized, like, "Oh [BLEEP], I'm creating music that, like, nobody else
can do."
Iggy Azalea did a video called "Bounce" and she went to India.
There's a scene where she's wearing a Kiritam,
which is like the crown that the goddess wears and, like, I've worn it in a very religious,
spiritual way.
So to see someone who doesn't know what that is kind of just gyrating on top of an elephant
woke me up.
I was, like, "Wow, literally something that I've written in my journal that I want to
film has been filmed by someone who has no connection to the culture, and if I do not
get up and do this right now, if I don't make my album, I don't know what will happen.
It won't be me, part of the revolution.
It won't be me speaking for us.
At some point you reach that place as an artist where, like, if you don't put something out,
your head is going to [BLEEP] explode and I think that that's the place that she got to.
The day that she called me,
she just had this excitement in her voice.
She was like, "I'm ready.
Nobody's stopping me.
I'm not letting nobody else tell me no.
[BLEEP] it!" and I think since then she hasn't slowed down.
I'm actually working on an EP.
It's called "The Come Up" and it is about being on the precipice of everything you desire
and taking a leap and it's really about visualizing and manifesting.
There have been many times where I have had moments of doubt and wondered if I should,
like, erase my culture in order to make it in America, but as I've come here and I've
understood my role in all of this, I see that that is actually the thing that's going to
help me make it and that's the thing that makes me unique and that's the thing that
needs to be celebrated.
So I realize that I'm actually going to make it because of my cultural heritage and because
I've understood it and celebrated it.