Arjun Kanungo is working on a regular basis. He’s seated on a lodge mattress in Tokyo in a black tank high and speaking about how he desires to simply hang around and celebration in Japan, however he simply finally ends up working. It’s effectively into the night within the Land of the Rising Sun, and Kanungo isn’t winding down simply but.
“I’m actually at a shoot. We’re in a hotel room, so I’m not home yet,” he chuckles. If there’s a tinge of tiredness, Kanungo, 34, does effectively to cover it. Or, he’s simply genuinely excited to be making inroads into Japan’s music and know-how trade in latest occasions—the place his album Industry2 (launched in August 2023) had the tune “India To Japan” with Japanese rapper Cyber Rui, a extra genuine output got here nearly a yr later, with “Tell Me” releasing in February this yr.
On the plaintive J-pop tune, you hear Kanungo’s collaborator, Japanese artist Ren’s voice first, taking over a pop croon in Japanese and English. Kanungo steps in simply a bit later and “Tell Me” flows like a late-night piano ballad, written by acclaimed and globe-trotting songwriter Kanata Okajima. She’s written for everybody from BTS to TWICE to Baby Metal, so there’s an earnestness that simply pours out of “Tell Me” because of Okajima.
The tune was written almost a yr in the past, however he discovered that the palms of the Japanese music trade are meticulous planners. “When we wrote ‘Tell Me’ and finished it in early 2023, Ren had his whole year planned out. His management was clear that this was a song for February 2024,” Kanungo says, with respect in his voice.
On his earlier visits, Kanungo has plotted video shoots and songwriting periods. This time, it’s been extra enterprise conferences and investor conferences for his firm One Mind—a music firm that may now have a Japan headquarters—in addition to One Mind Technologies, a tech arm he’s constructing with India’s high leisure lawyer Priyanka Khimani and two extra co-founders.
“The first cool thing we’re building is a legal tool, like an AI lawyer. We’re building that for the creator economy at the moment. We should have a beta version out as early as June,” Kanungo says. It’s for the Indian viewers at first, however in addition they need it to work in Japan. The artist feels there’s a lot of “information asymmetry” in Japan, and the music trade nonetheless wants extra organizing than in India.
This is Arjun Kanungo re-establishing himself within the fast-moving world of music, the place you possibly can run out of credibility about as shortly as you hit your first few million streams. Kanungo had a disaster of confidence when his album Industry2 got here out. He says, “The mistake that I made was I had too many different types of songs and I put them all into one album.”
Working on the album whereas recovering from a hip fracture was additionally grueling, and it meant that he didn’t get to tour with Industry2 and it didn’t attain individuals in not less than one important manner. Artistically, Kanungo – who has tried every little thing from funk to hip-hop to rock and electronica – realized that he ought to follow pop. “When I was trying to expand my horizons as an artist, I made the wrong choice of expanding horizontally. What I should have done was go deeper into what I already know rather than trying too many things that are not my genre,” he says.
This is coming from the voice who first reduce his enamel being a part of legendary vocalist Asha Bhosle’s touring act as a vocalist, going across the globe, after which being a part of the Indian indie circuit whilst he was enlisted by composer duo Sachin-Jigar for the quirky “Khoon Choos Le” from Go Goa Gone in 2013. It was solely in 2015 that he took a shot at mainstream pop success, releasing “Baaki Baatein Peene Baad” with hip-hop/pop star Badshah through Sony Music India.
After a slew of singles like “Aaya Na Tu” and “La La La” with the backing of main labels and star singers, plus movie soundtrack initiatives, Kanungo launched Industry in 2022, which had the King-assisted songs “Ilzaam” and “Ishq Samdunar.” Industry2 arrived simply a yr later, however in a wholly totally different course.
At the top of it, Kanungo is glad that it didn’t take a couple of album for course correction, the place typically artists are 5 albums into the “rebel without a cause situation that’s not working,” the singer says. He provides, “I think it’s taken a lot of confidence for me to realize that my sh*t was good enough.”
After “Tell Me” with Ren to creating in-roads into Japan, Kanungo tapped Sri Lankan artist Chamath Sangeeth, taking his tune “Nohithunata” to make his new pop tune “Suno Na.” It’s a no-frills, vocal-centric tune that performs up Kanungo’s mushy, typically high-pitched vocals that he’s recognized for, coupled with appropriately romantic and introspective lyrics written by Murtuza Gadiwala.
It’s a calculated transfer to adapt “Nohithunata.” Kanungo factors out that the tune had topped the Sri Lankan Daily 100 record on Apple Music, and is inching in the direction of a million streams on Spotify. “So we acquired that song to be done in Hindi. I think it’s going to be a big one because it’s already doing so well in the regional version, and the [Hindi] version has also come out great.”
One Mind Music—Kanungo’s label which has launched “Suno Na”—had its funding secured in May and slowly, the artist started constructing his workforce. There are about 20 hires they usually’ve been shifting ahead gung-ho, as he places it. “The team is killing it,” he says.
The aim is to launch about 150 songs this yr on One Mind Music, which incorporates Kanungo’s songs (together with a new EP) and artists like Ocean Sharma, producer Nesz, pop artist Shivvyy (“He’s gonna be the biggest thing in Bollywood playback because his voice is exceptional,” Kanungo says) and extra.
Kanungo says with a little little bit of concern that they’re solely about 40 songs into the discharge plan. “I think we’re about seven songs behind as per our schedule,” he says. The manner Kanungo describes it, the One Mind workplace is a artistic area, which signifies that everyone seems to be a bit slower with regards to “drudge work.” He says with a giggle, “Everybody takes it easy once I leave the office. They’re like, ‘Yeah! Let’s party.’ Because when I’m there, I’m like, ‘Dude, we got to hit the deadlines.’ It’s the creative side [that] everybody loves, and they really love doing that.” The unglamorous and tedious duties like syncing lyrics to streaming platforms or including a Canvas for Spotify tracks will be a downer.
One of Kanungo’s favourite recollections of Japan is the karaoke bars. It’s a part of standard tradition related to Japan, as Kanungo knew, however he didn’t notice how shut the depictions have been to actual life.
He says, “What you see in movies is literally what you experience. It’s usually like these salarymen, who blow off steam. They go to work, and then they really party. They really know how to use this as an emotional outlet. It’s incredible to see the broken English. They’re singing English songs. It’s very entertaining. It’s amazing.”
When it’s Kanungo’s activate the mic, he can blow them away with Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” however the singer says it’s not a aggressive area in any respect. “It’s a very special place to them because they get to blow off steam with their bosses or whoever they come with, and they’re not judged. I think it’s a very sacred thing for them,” he provides.
Kanungo linked up with one other Indian Japanophile on this journey – producer Karan Kanchan. They have been initially slated to fly into Tokyo collectively however finally, they met up and there’s a potential collaboration between Kanungo and the beatsmith behind hits like DIVINE’s “Baazigar” and extra relevantly, his early J-trap sound. “We were just hanging out every day, man. He’s just going to Osaka now, so I’m probably not going to see him for the rest of the trip. But every other day, we’ve been hanging. We’ve been talking about music, we’ve been meeting production houses here, talking about songs together,” Kanungo says. There’s a mutual love for Japan, however Kanungo concedes that Kanchan is the larger fan of the nation. “He’s also very into the subcultures as well and really into traditional Japanese music,” he provides.
There’s a sure reverence that Kanungo additionally clearly holds for Japan. It began with a pretty touristy go to to the nation along with his spouse – artistic designer, actor, and mannequin Carla Dennis. Now, he not solely has collaborations lined up with a number of Japanese artists, but additionally has a native accomplice within the nation for One Mind Japan, together with liaisons who’ve helped him get in the identical room as famend manufacturers like Pokémon, main labels, and music corporations like TuneCore and Ableton.
Kanungo is leaning in and he’s assured that he will be the bridge between India and Japan. Whether intentional or not, on “Tell Me,” it’s Ren’s Japanese vocals that are available first and it’s not about an Indian artist hogging the eye however being respectful of what the tune wants. “I think when you’re writing for Japan, you want to write in Japanese. Obviously, I can’t write in Japanese, and they wanted me to sing in Japanese. They wanted the whole song to be Japanese, but I was not confident. I didn’t want to mess this up,” he says.
His subsequent tune brings in Japanese bassist-singer MINA, a 23-year-old artist who’s simply launched her personal debut monitor “Tenjo Tenge Yuiga Dokuson” on May tenth. Kanungo and MINA have labored on a tune whose English title is “Tell Me You Love Me.” He says, “I’ve actually made her play a bass line on one of my Hindi songs. She’s a slap pop artist, so it’s really cool to see a Japanese girl playing a Hindi song.”
There are greater Japanese music stars that he’s collaborating with as effectively, however he’s protecting that underneath wraps since—like with “Tell Me”—the initiatives would take a whereas earlier than they’re promoted and marketed on the finish of the yr. What’s Kanungo’s technique to search out artists? “I’ve just been binging on Japanese pop culture, man,” he says with a giggle. Everybody has been welcoming of him, with mutual pleasure ranges about working collectively. He provides, “I’m very interested in doing stuff with the stars of tomorrow, not the stars of yesterday here, because I feel like that’s really the value add in the culture.”
It all comes out through One Mind, a label that Kanungo says is not only cross-cultural and appears past borders but additionally desires to be constant. “Our belief is that everything is future forward. Everything from your A&R to your songwriting to your internal process, everything is future forward,” he says.
Outside of Japan-focused tunes, Kanungo has a tune known as “Mahi Ve” with Shivvyy out in mid-May and a couple of songs with Mumbai rapper Gravity popping out in June. Kanungo, who appeared on “Kyu” off Gravity’s Moonbounce album, says, “This is my exit from hip-hop, in the sense that I don’t want to be a rapper.” One Mind Music can also be plotting a tune with Ocean Sharma as a theme tune for “one of the biggest games in India,” in keeping with Kanungo.
Timed with the monsoon, there’s a pop EP about baarish [rains] popping out in July. He says, “I think I’m known for those kind of songs as well. So I was like, ‘Why not?’”
Credits
Writer: Anurag Tagat
Photographer: Arjun Mark
Creative Director and Concept: Peony Hirwani
Creative Designer: Carla Ruth Dennis
Stylist: Sejal Parulkar
Makeup: Suprabha Jadhav
Hair: Pratik Patkar
Tailor: Rakesh Yadav
Producer: Shivanshu Gupta
Associate Producer: Sarvesh Baheti
Photo Assistant: Rohith Rajan, Gopi Krishnan, Aditya Panwar
Assistant to Talent: Nihal Ahmed
Assistant to Producer: Kartik Reddy
Set Assistant: Priyansh Paul
Production House: One Mind Music
Videographers: Shivanshu Gupta, Sarvesh Baheti, Nihal Ahmed
BTS Video Editor: Shivanshu Gupta
Location: Neuma, Mumbai
Catering: Nair on Fire