This article was printed in
Chic Compass Magazine – Issue 6
Ricky Kej
BRINGING HOPE FOR A BETTER, KINDER WORLD
BY JOAN S. PECK
If you haven’t heard of Ricky Kej, you are in for a treat when you learn all that he’s doing through music to bring hope to a world that is desperate for change. Even more so, when you become aware of his beliefs and efforts to bring about a better world by caring for Mother Nature and each other, you will understand why he is so honored across the globe. He is truly “one in a million,” a gifted artist with heart. When you listen to his music, I believe you will feel like I do—like the love of the Universe is wrapping its arms around you, leaving you in a safe, beautiful sense of community with all that is. It is for me an uplifting and glorious experience each time I hear his music. And knowing the music was created by a man filled with kindness and love for humankind makes it that much more special.
Who is Ricky Kej?
Ricky Kej is a Grammy Award-Winning composer and U.S. Billboard #1 artist, and an internationally renowned Indian Music Composer and Environmentalist. He has performed at prestigious venues in over 30 countries, including at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and Geneva. Ricky has won more than 100 music awards in over 20 countries. He is the UNESCO “Global Ambassador for Kindness,” UNCCD “Land Ambassador,” UNICEF “Celebrity Supporter,” and Ambassador for “Earth Day Network.” He is Adj. Professor NIAS (at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore).
Ricky Kej was born on August 5, 1981, in North Carolina. A half Punjabi and Marwari by birth, he moved to Bangalore, India, when he was eight years old and has lived there since. He completed his schooling at the Bishop Cotton Boys’ School, Bangalore, and subsequently, his Dentistry from the Oxford Dental College in Bangalore.
Kej started his career as the keyboardist of Bengaluru-based progressive rock band Angel Dust. Two years into the band, Kej moved on to become a full-time composer and set up his own studio, Raveolution, in 2003. He eventually went on to create music for over 3,000 ad jingles and Kannada films. Though Kej’s work is an amalgamation of multiple genres, he has maintained that the essence of his work retains the aesthetic of his Indian roots, based mainly on Hindustani Classical and a bit of Carnatic also.
Throughout his career, Kej went on to release 13 studio albums, most of which were physically released in the U.S., not in his home country of India. That was due to the poor music-buying culture in India and the dominant presence of the Hindi film music industry in the country.
On November 30, 2015, his album Shanti Samsara – World Music for Environmental Consciousness was launched at COP 21, the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Prime Minister personally presented French President Francois Hollande with a copy of the CD. Ricky Kej was invited to perform a song from Shanti Samsara in a unique arrangement featuring flutist, Wouter Kellerman, and over a hundred students from the Bishop Cotton Boys’ School in a special performance for India’s President Pranab Mukherjee. In 2016 “Samsara” from Shanti Samsara received the December 2015 Global Music Awards Gold Medal for World Music – India, and the International Acoustic Music Awards for Best Open/Acoustic Open Genre and on March 1, 2016, was named as a finalist in the 2015 World Music category of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest.
In 2018, Kej released My Earth Songs – Music for Children on the Environment and Sustainability. These are a set of 27 songs each based on a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal aimed to create awareness and inspire the younger generation to make a tangible positive impact in their lives and lives of people around them. Notably, Kej has teamed up with Macmillan publishers to feature these songs in over 1 million English language school textbooks from 2019. Kej has also partnered with UNICEF to spread these songs to children across the world and is working on translating them to several different Indian and global languages My Earth Songs was nominated as one of the top 3 finalists for the UN SDG Action Awards 2019.
When did you first get interested in music?
R.K.: “I have always been a staunch environmentalist along with being a musician. It was through my music that I fell in love with our natural world, and I have always found a deep connection between music and nature. Winning the Grammy Award in 2015 really pushed and inspired me to dedicate my life and my music to the sole cause of Environmental Consciousness. Ever since then, all of my music has been about the environment and raising awareness of climate change.”
Do you come from a musical background?
R.K.: “My father is a 3rd generation doctor, so as you can imagine, everyone in my family expected me to become a doctor, and all the decisions that they made for me throughout school and college was with that thought in mind. Throughout my childhood, I was very serious about music. In India, it is during our 12th grade that we need to make a big decision as to what we would like to do with the rest of our lives professionally. Whether a doctor, an engineer, accountant, manager, businessman, etc. I had made up my mind that I wanted to be a musician for the rest of my life. I wanted music to be my hobby, my passion, my profession, my bread and butter, and my “everything.” I went to my father and told him the same, and he thought I was absolutely crazy. “How can music be a profession?” I fought with my parents, and after many days of fighting, my father and I reached a compromise. I would have to finish off a degree in Dental Surgery, and once I finished my degree, I could do whatever I wanted for the rest of my life. So I went to Dental College for five years, and at the end of five years, I got myself a Dental Science degree. The day I got my degree, I gave the certificate to my father, and I became a full-time musician. I did not practice Dentistry for even a single day. As they say, there was no looking back after that.”
Did or do you have a mentor?
R.K.: “My influences are many and from various countries and cultures. Among musicians, I have loved the styles of Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Peter Gabriel, and AR Rahman because they have never let genre boundaries define them. All that they did was make music that they strongly believed in and collaborated with some of the best musicians and individuals across the globe. The world was/is their musical canvas.”
What is the first instrument you played and is it still your favorite?
R.K.: “Although I have always played keyboards and still do, I am a huge fan of ancient traditional instruments such as the Bansuri, Sitar, Koto, Dan Bau, etc.”
Where was your first live concert? What was it like? How did you feel about it?
R.K.: “One of my very first large scale live concerts was a special performance for the President of India. It was a huge honor for me to perform my music for him and thousands of others in the audience. It was a thoroughly exhilarating experience. In my role as an ambassador for various global organizations such as UNCCD, UNICEF, Earth Day Network, etc., I use my live concerts to connect emotionally to my audience to inspire mass behavioral change. I have always believed that only when people start acknowledging an issue and start a dialogue to solve it, a solution will come. I aim to inspire this dialogue through my music. I regularly perform to audiences consisting of World Leaders, decision-makers, and prominent dignitaries to urge them to commit to climate action and to hundreds of thousands of people in the general public to raise awareness about different social and environmental issues.”
What enticed you to get involved with environmental concerns?
R.K.: “After I won the Grammy Award, the Honorable prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, invited me for a private meeting to his office. With a population of 1.3 billion in India, I was incredibly honored by this invitation. The meeting turned out to be an hour-long philosophical discussion. Our Honorable Prime Minister Modi knew I was a strong conservationist and inspired me to dedicate my life and my music to the sole cause of Environmental Consciousness. That was the push I needed, and ever since then, all of my music has been about the environment and raising awareness on Climate Change.”
What did it feel like to win the Grammy for your collaborative CD with Wouter Kellerman a few years ago?
R.K.: “It was around 2012 when I met South African flute player Wouter Kellerman. I was a huge fan of his music, and he was a fan of my music. We wanted to work together. We finally met in Los Angeles, and while discussing ideas for a potential collaboration, I mentioned that I had just composed a piece of music based on the ideals of peace by Mahatma Gandhi, my father of the nation. It was a huge coincidence that Wouter was working on a piece of music inspired by Nelson Mandela, his father of the nation. Through our discussions, we realized that there was a whole lot of cross-pollination here – Mahatma Gandhi spent his formative years in South Africa, so he has South “African’ness” in him. Mahatma Gandhi heavily inspired Nelson Mandela so he has “Indian’ness” in him. Wouter started to add south African’ness to my music, and I began to add Indian’ness to his music. While doing this, both of us became the best of friends, traveled across the globe and in two and a half years we had an album ready ‘Winds of Samsara’ and that album went to the top of the U.S. Billboard charts, and we eventually won the Grammy Award for it. I consider every award being a recognition and super important, but if awards are used just for vanity, it’s pointless. Using awards and my platform for a greater good is what matters to me. Winning the Grammy Award acted as a major catalyst in accelerating the process of taking forward the causes that I strongly believe in.”
What gave you the idea to collaborate with musicians from across the world? Did some of them change the way you think today?
R.K.: “I have always collaborated with musicians from around the world, and such collaborative efforts always influence and inspire me. In my album “Shanti Samsara,” I collaborated with over 500 musicians from 40 countries. I worked with Native American Flute Players, a Gaelic Choir, Hebrew Choir, South African Choir, Korean, Turkish, Senegalese Singers, Azerbaijani musicians, Koto player from Japan, Maori musicians, etc. It is such a fulfilling experience to bring all these different cultures, traditions, and people together through the universal language of music for a higher purpose.”
What is something you’d like to accomplish that you haven’t achieved to date regarding your teaching the importance of protecting the world?
R.K.: “I have always believed that we have to start with children if we are to raise a generation of environmentally conscious citizens, and that is what we are setting out to achieve. I created “My Earth Songs” along with my close musical friends Lonnie Park, Dominic D’Cruz, and these songs already appear in over 5 million schoolbooks and were also recognized and honored by the United Nations in Bonn, Germany, for its innovation, creativity, and outreach. All of these songs are based on the 17 sustainable development goals of the United Nations. Along with UNICEF, we are hoping that children around the world will sing these songs and learn from their important messages.”
What are your dreams for a better world, and how are you and the world leaders you work with are going about to accomplish them?
R.K.: “I work with several National and State Governments, Global bodies, Scientists, and other world leaders to effectively convey their urgent, complex messages related to the environment through the powerful language of music. Instead of waiting to be hired to create music, I now create music from the heart, as an extension of my beliefs and personality. Since I am an environmentalist, all my music has themes of sustainability. This pandemic has clearly shown us how fragile we are as a species and how interdependent we are. It has shown us beyond any doubt, that if we are faced with an imminent threat, we humans are capable of massive behavioral change, and that our leaders are capable of making firm decisions. We have to utilize this time to reflect on our relationship with our natural environment and put sustainability at the forefront of everything that we do. What we need is a change in consciousness and behavior. We need to consume less of everything. We have to vote for environmentally conscious leaders, and we have to support environmentally responsible businesses. Conscious actions such as these will have a ripple effect and will contribute significantly to the well- being of our planet.”
What current projects are you working on?
R.K.: “I have been continuously working on several projects. An estimated 150 million viewers watched my last three online concerts in April and June 2020 from around the world, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. I also released a remix of the original theme that I composed for India’s first blue-chip natural history film, Wild Karnataka’ featuring Sir David Attenborough. I recently released a music video for the ‘Make A Mark’ project along with decorated Olympians, Niccolo Campriani, and Abhinav Bindra. I am currently working on a project with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to help refugee artists from around the world to fulfill their dreams of becoming professional musicians. There are several more projects in the pipeline.”
Ricky’s concern for the more than 30 million refugees in the world connected him to the UNHCR (The U.N. Refugee Agency) and to partner with them and UNESCO MGIEP to create a new project called, “Ricky with Refugees.” Over the next two months, he will be collaborating with 20 refugees artists from around the world to compose some brand new music to inspire and keep their dreams alive.
Ricky Kej is an outstanding musician and human being who, through his music and actions, brings us so much HOPE for a better world. By emulating his acts of kindness, we all can learn to get along with each other and live in a world-wide community that cares for Mother Nature and all she represents.
Learn more about Ricky Kej at www.RickyKej.com.