For most of his growing up years in Los Angeles, Aditya Prakash was the ‘Indian kid’ who sang classical Carnatic music while his peers were exploring pop and hip-hop. When he went to Chennai every year to study under the stalwarts, he was an ‘American boy’ whose accent and appearance did not exactly match the expected mold of a traditional musician.
“I never felt like I belonged anywhere. The feeling of not fitting in became frustrating, and I think that’s where the search for identity began.” That ‘discovery’ is the emotional core Room-A-NationThis season he is bringing his amazing gig-theatre work to India. It merges music, personal stories, movement and minimalist stage design to recreate the feeling of being inside their ‘room’.
Aditya, who is currently on a music venture in Singapore, speaks over the phone to highlight the need for expatriate artists to tell their stories. “You feel like an outsider everywhere… but when you find your own space outside the box, it can also give someone else a voice,” he explains.
storytelling has impact
Aditya’s narrative-driven music started early and at home. His mother (Viji Prakash), one of the earliest Bharatanatyam teachers in California in the 1970s, created full-length dance plays. Her sister Maithili Prakash, a Bharatanatyam dancer, also continued this tradition. He says, “I grew up among dancers inquiring about music in different ways; why does your voice sound sweet here, why does an instrument go in there… That’s what shaped the way I think about intention in music.”
Although storytelling has always been a part of his art, he never explored it as a primary language until much later, first appearing on his 2023 album Isolashun And then in its living, developed form, Room-A-Nation,
The turning point came with the insurrection at the US Capitol in January 2021. Aditya admits that the violence shattered his sense of security and belonging. He recalls, “It disturbed me. To understand violence through story I created a piece in which I played a dictator completely outside of myself.” Working with the artists – Maithili and choreographer Akram Khan – strengthened this feeling. “Dance taught me how powerful it is to sing in the voice of a character,” he says.
Aditya wanted Room-A-Nation Feeling intimate, not exhibitionist. “If an audience walks into a theater with stage lights and space, they automatically think of ‘concert.’ I wanted to disarm them and make them feel as if they’d walked into my room.”
The aesthetic experience matters more than the literal meaning, says Aditya. , Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
myth of authenticity
As someone steeped in Carnatic tradition, but raised in the West, Aditya has often been questioned about chastity, gamakas and the fear of ‘being vulnerable’. He challenges the very basis. “Tradition and purity are not inherent in Carnatic music; they are human creations. Even the greats who came before them broke the rules. What they created later became the new pure,” he insists.
A guru, TM Krishna, once asked him to strip Carnatic music of all its paraphernalia – costume, speech, doorman – and define what raga meant to him. “That was transformative. Before, I would accommodate gamakas for fusion contexts. Now I don’t. Gamaka is an intrinsic part of the music. The feeling it brings is inseparable.”
On whether his American upbringing makes pronunciation challenging, Aditya says, “We learn Carnatic music by imitation. Be it a musical phrase or a language, we imitate our teachers. So, yes, some sounds are difficult, but the aesthetic experience matters more than the literal meaning. For me, it was not about the meaning of Tyagaraja; it was the Raga Mukhari, the way he set the words to music. That’s what impressed me.”
impact and effect
The biggest turning point came when Aditya joined Pandit Ravi Shankar’s group as a teenager. “Until then, my American friends did not understand Carnatic music. But with Panditji, we performed in front of mostly non-Indian audiences, and there was no segregation at all. He became a role model for me when I later formed my own group.”
The UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) years and the birth of Aditya Prakash Ensemble were bright spots in his musical journey. He hung out with jazz musicians who practiced hard and listened deeply. “We didn’t form a band because it was cool. It was born out of genuine curiosity. We would listen to each other practice and join in. It was just dialogue and exploration.”
This became the foundation of the Aditya Prakash Ensemble and ultimately led to the 2020 album migrant child,
room-9-nation Hubba will be presented by Aditya Prakash at Mahindra Kabira Festival (Varanasi) on 21st December and at The Sabha (Bengaluru) on 16th January.
published – December 12, 2025 09:58 PM IST