Maahi talks about his debut EP ‘Talab.’ Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Behind every adored pop artist is a team working behind the scenes, and Maahi is more than happy to give them their due. He says over a Zoom call, “I’m a firm believer in the philosophy of, ‘Do what you’re good at, and, leave a lot of it to the people who are better at that [other aspects].’”
For his debut EP Talab, the pop singer has worked with composers and lyricists like Bharath, Rohh, Saaheal, Samad Khan, and Akash Kaushal across four tracks. Leaning into the rising micro-drama trend, his label Saregama worked with content company FilterCopy to tailor a series centred around the EP’s themes.
With each of the four tracks dropping after a dedicated micro-drama episode that teases it through a college love story, Talab marks a few new moves for Maahi. “I’ve usually operated in a very lovey-dovey space. Moving to a little bit of a darker space here was fun,” he says, referring to his melancholy title track, which comes with a tempestuous music video. A pivot from the romantic, affable pop of his previous single “Jaan Se Zyada” that came out earlier this year, Talab EP also brings in more buoyant electronic and dancefloor-friendly grooves with songs like “Dildaari,” building mystique on “Vaari Vaari” and offering roomy pop rock on “Raahein.”
With work beginning around the end of April this year on Talab, Maahi says it was imperative that they not only captured his current state of mind, but also put it out in a timely manner, before he was “emotionally somewhere else.” He says, “When you’re in a certain phase at some point in your life, you tend to make music as per that. The longer it doesn’t come out, you tend to enter different stages in your life.”
In this stage of life, Maahi has also taken acting workshops for past music videos and the micro-drama series. He admits he was “apprehensive and confused” about the using a micro-drama series to promote his latest set of songs, but says it was “incredible” to see the execution and outcome. “I was really happy to get into it just purely because it’s something that I haven’t seen a lot of before,” he says. He notes how media is changing so rapidly that it’s hard to keep a track of and then becomes a bit self-aware. “I sound so sold at the moment,” the 20-year-old laughs.
Now fully buying into how micro-dramas could be a “fresh way to market a song,” Maahi points out that the narrative wasn’t just to support the music of Talab, but to incorporate it in a deeper way. “If you hear the music in the episodes, they’re all stems from the song, even the rhythm or the groove that’s playing in the back,” he says. While four episodes were planned originally to build up to the EP release, demand (and the narrative arc that goes from an awkward meeting to a blossoming romance) has driven Maahi, Saregama, and FilterCopy to drop a fifth episode on Oct. 17. “We just felt it wouldn’t be fair to be like, ‘Promotion ho gaya series ka. Just because of the amount of love that we’ve we’ve gotten on it, we felt like the audience deserved at least a proper conclusion to it,” he says.
Then, there’s another visual dimension to the project with the “Talab” music video, made by Arsalaan Abbas and Nathan Solomon from the production house Birds and Bees. Abbas and Solomon — who are also part of the pop group Citimall — are Maahi’s childhood friends. He calls making the “Talab” music video a “full circle moment.” He adds, “These are people I’ve been hanging out with since I was, like, 10. So for them to execute such an incredible video is crazy.”
Collaboration and multi-artist projects are still very much Maahi’s approach to making music. There’s work ongoing with the songwriting/production duo Never Sober, comprising Riz and Soham (Maahi’s brother). “I think the name of the game is consistency and consistent releases. That’s something I’m aiming for over the next few years.”
The micro-drama stint means he might do a few acting courses as well. “I got my toes wet in this, so maybe I’ll explore a little bit more of that. But nothing comes before the music, so just tons more of that,” he adds.
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