AILSA CHANG, HOST:
All this week, we're featuring first-time Grammy nominees, as we do every year. And today, we're going to head down to Laguna Canyon, where we meet singer Radhika Vekaria.
Nice to meet you. Thank you so much for making the time.
RADHIKA VEKARIA: Oh, thank you for coming all this way.
CHANG: Of course.
VEKARIA: Yeah, especially with everything that's going on, you know?
CHANG: We had been reporting on the devastation of the LA fires earlier that same day, and met Vekaria at a temple called Kali Mandir, that's tucked away in a residential neighborhood. She's been returning to this temple time and time again over the last decade because of how it nurtures her.
VEKARIA: It's been such a refuge, a place of a reset. Everything that you would feel that your home should be - nourishing, safe, regrounding (ph) - all these things and just full of love.
CHANG: When you meet Vekaria, you get the sense that she, too, embodies those very qualities herself. And maybe that's why it's fitting that she conceived of her album "Warriors Of Light" in this place.
VEKARIA: Sure, yes...
CHANG: OK.
VEKARIA: ...We can walk toward the altar. Yeah.
CHANG: She guides us to the main room, to a beautiful shrine dedicated to the goddess Kali.
VEKARIA: You know, she's kind of all black, and she might have her tongue sticking out and all this, and she's dancing wildly. And she has many different facets to her, but Kali really is unconditional love. She's unconditional love. She's the one that will banish your ignorance, really. She's the dispeller of your ego.
CHANG: So during quiet moments, if you find yourself kneeling before this shrine, where do the thoughts in your head travel? Like, what do you think about? What do you process when you sit here?
VEKARIA: Well, the first thing I do when I come here is I bow my head, and I touch my head on the floor. And that's the first thing. The reason why we do that is because when you bow or you prostrate, your head becomes lower than your heart. So think about that for a...
CHANG: Yeah.
VEKARIA: ...Second, right?
CHANG: Yeah.
VEKARIA: You're really leading with your heart...
CHANG: Exactly.
VEKARIA: ...So (ph) your ego gets dissolved...
CHANG: Yes.
VEKARIA: ...On the floor. You put it in the ground.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KALI")
VEKARIA: (Singing in Sanskrit).
CHANG: This song, "Kali," was the first track that Vekaria wrote for this album, which is now nominated for a Grammy Award for best new-age ambient or chant album.
VEKARIA: And I hadn't even really thought of the full album at that point. I was just moved to connect with Maa Kali, and that song is what came about. And, you know, being here and being at the events that have taken place here - the music, the devotion - this place has been an anchor point for my life through some of the tough things that I've been through.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KALI")
VEKARIA: (Singing in Sanskrit).
CHANG: Vekaria was raised in the U.K. by Indian parents who were born in Kenya. She says her father came to London with only 300 pounds, a suitcase and a beautiful, beautiful singing voice. So all through her life, the family home was filled with music.
VEKARIA: I was around music from even - you know, when I was in the womb, my parents were having music parties in their homes. Like, we weren't rich. We had a little three-bedroom house, but my parents' friends all were musicians. And they would come and bring their instruments up to dinner. They'd just knock on the door, and, you know, several times a week, just after dinner, we'd just have all these random people in our house just playing music.
CHANG: I love it. And would your parents joke as you were growing up - telling you, you know, you were listening to music when you were in utero?
VEKARIA: Oh, absolutely.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIBERATE (MAHA MRITYUNJAYA)")
VEKARIA: (Singing in Sanskrit).
When you grew up in England as an Indian heritage kid...
CHANG: Yes.
VEKARIA: ...Even though you're in England, I had this beautiful mix of this Western upbringing, but this kind of rooted kind of remembering of my ancestors and that culture in the home. So I'm very - I feel very fortunate that I got the best of all the worlds. And so I would hear, you know, mantras and devotional music when you're little 'cause you'd go to ceremonies or, you know, rituals or holidays, and I would pick up mantras and melodies before I could speak English.
CHANG: Wow. It was so...
VEKARIA: I was singing...
CHANG: ...Intuitive for you.
VEKARIA: Yeah.
VEKARIA: I was going to that before I could even speak English.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HANUMAN CHALISA (FEAT. SHASHANK ACHARYA")
VEKARIA: (Singing in Avadhi).
CHANG: Can I share something with you?
VEKARIA: Please.
CHANG: I was listening to your music for the first time this week in my office at NPR West, and I had the volume on pretty loudly. And it wasn't until, you know, minutes into this album that I kind of poked my head out the door and I apologized to everyone for turning up the music so loudly. And I realized that people thought I was listening to your music to find a sense of calm during this terrible week that Los Angeles has gone through with these huge fires. And it made me connect with - in that moment - that not only is your music so healing, but there is something truly spiritual about it. And so I was curious - like, when you are making the music, does it feel like a spiritual experience as it's coming out of you?
VEKARIA: (Laughing) When I'm singing, yes.
CHANG: Yeah.
VEKARIA: I often cry.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HANUMAN CHALISA (FEAT. SHASHANK ACHARYA")
VEKARIA: (Singing in Avadhi).
Now I've realized that my measure of having recorded it well is if I cry it's good, if it - if I don't cry, it's not.
(LAUGHTER)
VEKARIA: So because there's such immense emotion and there's such power and potency, it's often a bit overwhelming after I've finished recording. Like, if I'm having a day where there's too much going on in the mind, if it's going to obstruct what's going to be there, then I don't do it, but that's very rare. Oftentimes I come to the microphone, I sing, and everything is just taken care of. Like, it's just...
CHANG: Wow.
VEKARIA: ...It immediately resets me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HANUMAN CHALISA (FEAT. SHASHANK ACHARYA")
VEKARIA: (Singing in Avadhi).
CHANG: She invites us to share that experience with her, so before we leave, we walk back to the shrine and sit cross-legged on the floor.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
VEKARIA: This is a harmonium.
CHANG: And two monks join her on drums.
VEKARIA: (Singing in non-English language).
CHANG: Radhika Vekaria - she's nominated for a Grammy for best new-age, ambient or chant album.
VEKARIA: (Singing in non-English language). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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