Vidya Vox Quotes

It might sound corny, but honestly, it’s worth staying true to your voice. It’ll get you places.

I spoke in Tamil at home and ate dosa and idli.

I was raised in an Indian household – singing classical music and eating south Indian food. But the second I went to school, it was a different world. I’d be listening to Destiny’s Child, Usher and the Backstreet Boys. It wasn’t until college that I really found the balance between the two worlds.

I was born in India, and – I was born in Chennai – South Indian. And my parents moved to the U.S. when I was about 8 or 9 years old.

The great thing about both Indian and Western pop music is that they’re fast and have a beat.

I never thought being a musician would be something I could make a career out of.

I guess fusion would be the best way to describe my music. I think it also goes into the spectrum of electronic and dance with inspiration from Indian folk songs.

My father was actually controlling and abusive.

During college, I collaborated with another YouTuber and musician, Shankar Tucker. He told me, ‘You can do music on YouTube and it’s a viable way to put out your songs’ and it worked out.

It’s okay, it’s cool to be Indian and there are cool people that are Indian and doing really well. It’s okay to be brown and cool.

My mother had to make an unconventional decision. We had to run away from home. She made a really difficult decision to leave financial stability behind and undertake raising two girls on her own.

My mother and grandmother are very supportive of me, and they always have a say in things. They also really help with any pronunciation problems I have with Tamil and Malayalam, and can always identify if there is a mistake and correct it.

My music is a whole reflection of who I’m as an individual.

When I launched my channel, I felt I was ready to do this. It’s not that I had learnt everything – because as an artiste you never stop learning, but I was ready to put out my voice in the world.

It’s very natural for me to sing in English and have a tabla in an arrangement, to have hip-hop beats but sing in Tamil. It’s very niche but I love doing it.

YouTube is amazing because you really don’t have to wait for anyone to showcase your work. Social media in general is like that. People can connect with it all over the world.

I find it difficult to talk about myself. I’m just shy.

Music is so subjective and personal, I don’t expect people to like everything I do. But that’s life and you have to live unapologetically.

I used to have blue hair, and a lot of people hated that I had blue or green hair, and I’d get so many comments like, ‘you’re so perfect, but why do you have blue hair?’ And it’s like, okay, but it’s my hair and I can do whatever I want.

I grew up listening to dappan koothu songs and loved the fun party vibes they gave.

It’s very important to me to stay true to who I am as a musician and the songs that I love.

I was bullied when I was in middle school in D.C., especially for being an Indian, because there weren’t many Indian kids in school. And because of that, I tended to hide my Indian culture, but that changed by the end of high school. Now, I am 100% proud of it.

Growing up, I had a bit of an identity crisis.

By the time I went to college, I had totally embraced my Indianness, but I still didn’t tell anyone I could sing.

If your intention is pure, an audience will recognise it and connect with you.

I want to bring Indian music to the mainstream.

There’s no longevity on YouTube. You have to keep pushing boundaries.

Growing up in the U.S. as an Indian wasn’t easy.

Visuals are important, as listeners like to ‘see’ the song.

Most of the clothes and accessories in my videos come from my wardrobe.

The one thing I won’t do is sacrifice my Indian identity in my music, my clothing choices. It’s something I tried to hide growing up, and I would never do that again because it’s such a big part of me and I’m very proud of it.

I’m so grateful to be able to do music.

I’ll always be a student of music.

I love mixing Indian and Western.

The thing about doing mashups and covers is it’s great, but a part of you never gets to really showcase what your original sound is like or what your writing voice is like.

Yeah, I didn’t ever think about music as a career. Like, it was never – it’s just something like an extracurricular activity that my mom put me in. And as every South Asian, you know, like, child, I was like – oh, OK, I can do medicine.

I can be a mix of both. I don’t have to be an Indian or an American. They’re not mutually exclusive. It’s something growing up I didn’t know.

Music has been my way of expressing what I’ve been feeling.

Most of my jewellery is what I picked up in India.

I was once trying to find a song to fit Nicki Minaj’s ‘Hey Mama.’ But nothing worked out. Sometimes, you can’t help it.