Delhi-based musician Nucleya brought the house down with his bombastic performance at the Raasta. Pallavi Gupta reports
It is possibly the best compliment for any DJ to play at a jampacked place where the crowd has gone ecstatic over his music. With hits like New Delhi Nuttah, Street Boy and Bell Gadi, DJ Nucleya has put the restaurant Raasta at Hauz Khas Village on fire recently.
After a gap of six months, Nucleya has returned with some amazing tracks. He told us, “My journey started with Bandish Projekt. I learnt a lot being a part of the band, but I am happy that I moved ahead. As Nucleya I am an independent artist. I can chase my dreams, experiment with all sort of genres without any interference. Post release my EP (extended play), Koocha Monster last year, life has changed. I got great reviews and appreciation. The music was distinct from what people had ever heard before.”
Nowadays, every restaurant, pub, band, et al keep unsual names. Nucleya, too sounds out-of-the-box. He said, “Though my real name is Udyan Sagar, I renamed myself. Nucleya was once my email password and I ended up using it as my stage name. I also feel that if your music is good, it doesn’t really matter what your name is.”
‘Nucleya’ is an attempt to break-free the boundaries and restrictions of all genres of music. “I was introduced to electronic music when I was in school and I loved it so much that I started making my own music. I found deejaying the easiest way to make the world hear what I play. My passion for music comes partly from my parents and partly from my early peers. While parents introduced me to Indian music, friends introduced me to electronic. Now I make Indian electronic music,” he said.
Nucleya has grown up admiring his father’s favourite artists like Ghulam Ali Khalid. The tunes first embedded to him were of the films from the 50s and 60s. In his album Koocha Monster which was released last year, he mixed Indian street music in a slightly more bass-heavy format.
Though electronic music is fast picking up in India, it still has not a big following in comparison to the Bollywood hits. But it is undoubtedly creating ripples amid music aficionados. Explaining the prospective of electronic music, Nucleya forecasts, “The future of electronic music in India is very bright. A lot of youngsters are making amazing music and they all have their own unique signature sound. People are getting aware of this particular genre and there is a growing demand for it. With the help of Internet it has become easy to reach out to a wider audience which was only possible via a big record company back in the days. Now, one can upload a song on sound cloud or YouTube and can reach to a huge audience all by themselves. Because of all of these factors, electronic bass music now has a big audience.It is due to this reason that a lot of music festivals are organised every year.”
Nucleya has collaborated with several artists in the past. Talking of his latest venture he informed, “I have recently made a dance track in Tamil with Benny Dayal for Sony music. We shot an amazing video for the same too. I am sure the audience will accept it like my other creations.”