For Maya Neelakantan, who is being called the ‘Rock Goddess’ after her America’s Got Talent (Season 19) audition clip went viral, fame is accidental. “I never expected all this,” she says.
The young guitarist from Chennai (Tamil Nadu) feels that the blend of Indian classical music with rock and metal is “exciting and hasn’t been explored much yet”. “These genres are so underrated together! I want to create my own music, which is like the AGT performances,” she says.
The 11-year-old took to the reality show stage wearing an ornate lehenga-kurta set adorned with traditional jewellery and played Papa Roach’s Last Resort drenched in the tunes of classical Carnatic music, creating an audio-visual paradox. “I was representing the whole of India and wanted to make space for traditional music as well. My amma helped me organise the costume, earrings and everything else,” the school student said.
Neelakantan fell in love with Carnatic music at the age of two, and learned it online from Prasanna Ramaswamy (Guitar Prasanna).
Talking about business tycoon Anand Mahindra sharing his video, he said, “I did not expect it at all. It was so nice of him to do that… I have received love and support from guitar legends, many of whom are my close friends. But it was very unexpected for him to discover me like this, and I received love from the entire country!”
Support matters
Counting her blessings, Neelakantan says she is grateful for all the support she has received from her parents (Indian father and Australian mother) and others: “I have had a lot of support from legends like Gary Holt (American guitarist) who came all the way from Sacramento to Los Angeles to watch my AGT audition.” She has a good following on the internet with 15.8K followers on YouTube and 49.2K followers on Instagram.
