Versatile singer Jubin Nautiyal, currently shooting a music video in Chandigarh, opens up about his enduring love for heartbreak anthems, his surprising take on artificial intelligence, and why he believes true independent music has lost its way.Jubin, shooting a music video in Punjab, calls it a perfect setting. “Sad, deep stories come from small places,” he says. The singer, who has built one of Hindi music’s most recognisable voices on the back of achingly melancholic songs, is here to do what he does best — capture the quiet grief of small-town love. He adds, “People need more songs like Barbaad. Songs that are romantic but sound melancholic.” Commanding the niche space of sad song, the singer is happily carrying on. “I have been doing all genres of music thoughl like I recently did Hua,” says the singer who gave the devotional song Kanhaiyya in Dhurandhar: The Revenge. He adds, “But I keep the balance, you do one for yourself, and you do two for them. I know what I and my fans truly love, people want to listen to a lot of sad music from me. So, I keep romance and sad songs, especially a little melancholic.”
Ranveer Singh in the song Kanhaiyya from Dhurandhar: The Revenge
‘I Love AI, it doesn’t scare me at all’At a time when the music industry is gripped by uncertainty over artificial intelligence, Nautiyal has a contrary opinion. He explains, “I love AI. I’m not threatened by it at all. It has helped me a lot. One of its best benefits has been in the demo process — composers who once had to call in multiple singers to try out a song can now use AI to test voices before finalising one artist. A song came to me recently. The director first got AI to sing it in my voice, and it fit well. So, they came to me to record it. All the heartbreaks of other singer who would have been rejected, got saved.”Looking ahead, he believes the real consequence of an AI-saturated music landscape will be a renewed interest in live performance. “In few years you will see live music go crazy. Even the smallest of good live performers will play the biggest arenas. These are not artists with a billion views — but when you go to their show, you will see ten thousand people who bought tickets.” ‘Not everybody who can sing can be a playback singer’For an artist whose foray into independent music made him more popular, Nautiyal feeling less celebratory about the broader landscape of Indian independent music today. He traces the genuine roots of the movement to Kay Kay, Mohit Chauhan, and A.R. Rahman. But what passes for independent music now, he argues, has drifted far from that spirit. “Now we are selling brands. It’s not about music, it’s not about artist expression. Independent music is about- this is my story, this is what I want to say. But now independent music is talking of cars and girls. I am not a salesman yet. I’m still a musician at heart.” He adds, “Bollywood is not a genre, it’s an industry. But today people treat it like a genre. There’s a way of doing playback singing. And not everybody who can sing can be a playback singer.”
