Ranjini Jose: I am living my best professional life with indie music

Ranjini Jose is flaunting quite a few skills with the new video release of her song Nee Thedum Nesam Naane. The track is the singer’s first attempt at Tamil songwriting and it has garnered great interest on social media.
The song seems to be a product of Ranjini’s contentment with where she is at with her music. It is part of a three-song series — including cover tracks, Khalbali and Vennilavey — that she has done with her band, RJ the Band, to establish themselves as a unit.“Ever since I started in this field, I’ve wanted a band of my own and it’s been a 23-year-long wait, to be honest. I’ve been trying to make improvements with each track and finally, I have got the sounding that clicks for me. I find that I am in complete sync with band member and musical prodigy Charles Nazereth, who produces my songs and pushes me with my original songwriting,” she says.
Speaking about the Tamil number, Ranjini says, “The covers, which we gave a distinctive twist to, were well received and then the band pushed me to do an original track. The song is about the happiness that one feels when meeting someone special. And that is what I aim with my songs; to bring at least a brief moment of happiness to listeners and also, put them in party mode.”

Ranjini co-wrote hit single Sayahname with BK Harinarayan during the lockdown phase and says that writing originals is definitely the direction she wants to go in now. “Unless there is an absolute need for great literature, I feel I should be able to pull off songwriting because a song is basically about conveying what we think. I feel if I write my own songs, I can do better justice to them. Also, my main hobby used to be learning languages. My mother tongue is Tamil and in fact, Malayalam is the language I learnt the last, but I have a penchant for languages and I try to speak each one well. I have a Hindi original song coming up next,” she says.
While multitasking indie musicians is a relatively new thing in the Malayalam music scene, Ranjini explains that this “culture comes from abroad and competition is definitely high now”, but there are more portals for musicians and most have a dedicated fan base. “Musicians don’t have to be dependent on films anymore. I’ve been doing independent music since 2004, but we didn’t have the platform to present them then. Now, musicians have more control and will say ‘no’ to a film song if they don't want to do it,” she says.
Ranjini too, is self-assured about she will and won’t do, and the trend of “going on the vlogging bandwagon” is a definite no-no. “When I release a song, people tell me I should also vlog about things to increase my subscriber base, but I think this is a lot of nonsense. Why should we, who have a culture of musical greats such as Raveendran Master, be subjected to the endless blah-blah of vloggers. I want to be known for my music. I have done a lot of movie songs I’m not happy about. Now, when I am doing what I like, why would I want to pollute that? I’m living my best professional life now,” she says.