‘Still searching for a part of me’

We asked Lucky Ali to tell us about himself. He answered like a rockstar of a poet and shut us up from trying to delve more into his life. ‘Am still searching for the part of me that was before O Sanam, once I find it - there will be a song about it.’ But he laughs and adds that he has always been interested in learning to play music and compose and had he not been a musician he would have definitely been into academics. We’re just very glad he picked music! 

Ali was in the Capital to perform for the Bacardi NH7 Weekender and for those who missed it, he’s performing in the Kolkata chapter as well. Catch him if you can!  O Sanam, Anjani Rahon Mein, Mausam, Milegi Milegi Manzil, Sunoh, Aap Par Arz Hai are songs we have grown up with and strangely these songs are more indelibly fixed in our memories than the Bollywood songs Ali has sung. 

But , we must ask - why have we not seen an album from Ali in so long? That’s because he has been releasing his music online, he says. But coming from the age where cassettes and cds mattered, doesn’t releasing music online seem odd? ‘The whole industry has changed, at the end of the day people are still listening to music and that’s what matters!’ says Ali adding that there’s far more music happening online than on television.  ‘It felt cheap asking for money for music. I released my songs through social media and I got the response I was looking for,’ he says. 

So what about Bollywood? ‘By virtue of birth I was born into Bollywood...I wanted to get out!’ says the man leaving us bewildered. But Ali explains that he doesn’t fit in Bollywood, that music isn’t his ‘kind’ of music. But as ‘the road to hell is full of good intentions’ (and we quote!) - Ali has lent his voice to some brilliant Bollywood songs, but only for a virtue called friendship. 

And what’s keeping Ali busy these days? Lots of collaborations and compilations and of course - travel and family, he says adding that, ‘Things have gone beyond releasing an album. It is more about finishing a song and pushing it over SoundCloud.’ But no matter where the song is, Ali believes that ‘music is constant, people will always be open to listening to music!’

Ali grew up with the likes of Led Zeppelin and Metallica, these legends taught him all about the ‘feel’ of the song but the melody comes from India. Naming Kailash Kher, Rabbi, AR Rahman, Raghu Dixit, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan as his favourites, Ali says that people express themselves differently in music. But that is where the magic is.