Apart from singing, Clinton Cerejo loves experimenting with food. He tells Iknoor Kaur how his music reflects his personality
Music is not the only thing that fascinates singer-composer Clinton Cerejo. He is a big time foodie and is seriously interested in the art of cooking. In fact, if not a musician, he would have been a food critic. “I am interested in food as a science. I love how the world’s best chefs create a dish. It’s like music — how every ingredient needs to be in right quantity and how a slight mistake can better or spoil the product. So, whenever we go on a vacation as a family, I pay a lot of attention to food being cooked and served,” he says.
Clinton shot to fame with his popular track on Coke Studio, Madari, sung by Vishal Dadlani and Sonu Kakkar. He will be back on the show tonight with a new set of songs featuring the Barmer Boys, a Rajasthani folk band and singers Vijay Prakash, Sonu Kakkar and Bianca Gomes.
His aim was to make his compositions different from the previous year. He explains, “I wanted to do something different. The first song is called Pir Jalani featuring the Barmer Boys. I’ve used elements of Rajasthani folk music in the song and have also taken their traditional folk song and improvised on it. The second number is called Aisi Bani featuring Vijay, Sonu, Bianca and myself.”
Clinton recently formed his own band with the same lot of four called, Ananthaal. He tells us, “The third song is called Barkat which has been sung by Siddharth Basu. The song is dark in terms of composition and arrangement.”
His favourite of the lot is Beaina, sung by Vijay and him. He shares, “It is an epic song. It rises and falls drastically. The sound graph is interesting. It involves qawwals, temple bells, cello and bass.”
Clinton’s line-up includes two more songs. One of them is Pinjra, a duet between two new singers Sanam Puri and Jonita Gandhi which is a mix between electronic and organic music. His finale number is what he feels will be a “very popular song.” It features Kailash Kher and will be a horn section like Pir Jalani. Clinton calls it, “a folk song in reggae style.”
He believes that staying away from the “popular formula” helps him come up with better music. “I’ve tried to stay away from the madari formula. I don’t know what will be hit or flop. I’ve just tried to see how I feel about the song and not try and put the popular feel in it. I need to stay original,” he says.
Clinton isolated himself for a month and a half to prepare for Coke Studio. “My music does reflect me. This year I sat for one and a half month in a locked room because I wanted to write properly. I always do a lot of soul-searching. My songs reflect me. I’m a layered individual and that’s how my songs are,” he concludes.