„Ich will großartige Musik erschaffen. Ich will bedeutungsvolle Songs und eine echte kulturelle Wirkung hinterlassen. Ich will die Menschen in Südasien stolz machen.“ So Priya Ragus Statement im Zuge der Veröffentlichung ihrer Debüt-Single GoodLove 2.0 bei Warner, in der sie ihre Vorstellung einer perfekten ersten Liebe skizziert, jenseits von Religion, Kasten und Hautfarbe. Produziert von ihrem Bruder, Japhna Gold, und geschrieben komplett von Priya und ihrem Bruder, ist die Musik in den Klängen ihres kulturellen Erbes getränkt, von grossartigen Kollywood-Samples (ähnlich wie Bollywood, doch aus Tamil Nadu im Süden Indiens stammend) und Krishna-Mantras bis hin zu traditionellem Tabla und der tamilischen Sprache selbst. Die tamilisch-schweizerische Künstlerin präsentiert damit eine essenzielle Momentaufnahme der sri-lankischen und südindischen Sounds, von den Straßentänzen der Kuthu über religiöse Gesänge. Hoch spannend also, weshalb wir Priya Ragu und ihre neue Single ausführlich in unserer about the song-Reihe vorstellen!
Good Love 2.0 has changed quite a bit as a track. The previous version was more funky, had a different drum pattern and a completely different chorus than 2.0. We always knew, we were up to something but it never really convinced us 100%. One day, Japhna sent me an upgraded version and I was totally stoked about it. We immediately set up a writing session and the song began to take shape. The song speaks about a young, rebellious love. A connection between two souls, that knows no colour, cast or religion. Coming from where we come from, it is kinda expected to find and marry someone from my country. Family background, financial security, even cast plays a role to get the blessing from the parents side. We wanted to confront that mindset. We wanted give the world a feeling, that when you fall in love all those things don’t really matter. The older you get, the more choosy you are, the more you will be influenced by society. In this song, we wanted to portray that‘me and you against the world’ type of love. Shooting Stars don’t think about falling, they just fall – so is this love, you don’t think you just let yourself fall.
I instantly knew, we have to shoot visuals for it. Japhna and I exchanged some ideas and we thought it would be dope to reenact our parents’ love story. We wanted to fly to Jaffna, Sri Lanka and check out all the places our parents would meet up back in the days but because of the difficult situation in Jaffna, we decided it wasn’t a good idea to fly out there and shoot a video. So I researched Instagram and found Aneesh, the Director of the video. I told him about the idea and he suggested we should shoot in Goa, since that would be the closest to an Island feel. This was a super hectic time to organise everything within a week or two. The stylist, Longchen, came from Dheli. The others from Mumbai. I purposely wanted to break the stereotype and chose not to cast the main character as a Tamil guy..something our people wouldn’t expect or love to see. Love is beyond all of that.
We didn’t know each other nor did we have time to get to know each other before meeting.
Fast forward…we all sat around the table for the first time. Longchen had to organise all the clothes in no time! Since everybody was super dedicated and worked like it was their own project we were able to shoot the whole video…even when the electricity shut down…we pulled through successfully.
One day before departure, we cancelled our flight and stayed a couple of days longer because in no time we became really good friends. You see how love works in magical ways? All because we let ourselves fall…and because of this song we are where we are.
