Hitting the right notes

Singer Jankee Parekh and her band ‘Janakee & friends’ are increasingly getting popular as the happening live performers. She shares her success story minus Bollywood

With a resonating and powerful yet silky voice, striking looks and charisma in abundance, Jankee Parekh is without a question one of the best live performing artists in the country. Having done more than 450 concerts in India and worldwide, and collaborations with a number of Indian artists, she performed alongside international acts such as T-Paine, Sean Paul and Kelly Rowlands.

Jankee has also been a pioneer in recreating versions of some of her favourite songs and runs a popular YouTube channel as well. She talks about her band 'Jankee & Friends', her confluent style of music with a well curated high-energy approach, and what makes her band one of the leading live performing acts in the country.

Excerpts

When did you get interested in the music business?
I have been singing ever since I can remember, but I never thought of taking it up professionally. It was only post my graduation and after I quit my first job in exactly three days of joining that, I realised that maybe I should give my passion for singing true and honest direction. I started out doing voice-overs and jingles for radio and TV commercials. And before I knew it, I was bitten by the stage bug and started enjoying my live gigs.

Tell us about your band ‘Jankee & Friends’.
'Jankee & friends' is a crazy bunch of nine. It's a setup, which is a unique blend of a DJ set playing progressive electro dance tracks with live keyboards /guitars / drums and Dhol all set to live vocals by yours truly. My team includes Dj Paps who is the backbone of my band and Josh Crooner on vocals. Besides the two of them, I have a bunch of super talented musician’s on keys, guitars, drums, Dhol, my sound engineer and our Band video biographer Ayush Das who documents all our gigs.

How did the band begin?
Whenever I attended weddings and events, I noticed that there was always a gap between what the performing artist would want to present and what the audience would want to hear. The DJ and the performer offered a very different sound, but there was a space for a sound in between. When I decided to set up my band, I wanted to “FILL THAT GAP” in terms of music and beats. I wanted ‘Jankee & Friends’ to be about creating memories for a lifetime and not just dish out songs, which we would enjoy playing. The idea was to create a sound that was a mix of DJ and live as well as have the feel of a non-stop electro/club dance set fused with a lot of live Punjabi and acoustic. That's when I met DJ Paps through a common friend and we worked a lot on creating the perfect sound of our tracks. Gradually we had additions to our duo setup and today we are a bunch of nine artists that make a wedding party come alive. People often refer to ‘Jankee & Friends’ as “India's leading live performing act” but honestly, we have worked hard to get here.

What was your family’s take on you venturing into this industry?
It’s extremely important to have the family’s support system with everything you do. Initially, when I started singing, my parents were not too sure about having me pursue singing professionally. No one in my family has ever been exposed to this world so they weren’t certain of its functioning. Therefore, they wanted to make sure I’m doing the right thing.

Moreover, being a performer would involve a lot of travel, etc. In fact, I was once in South Africa for a month where my mom joined in. She saw the “gig” life as I call it - first hand, saw how serious I was about my music and got a chance to interact with other musicians who we toured with. A lot has changed for them post that trip because they saw things for what they were. After that, there was no looking back. Post marriage, my husband, in-laws consistently motivated me, and pushed me to do more than I thought I could.

How have you managed to create a brand for yourself in the live performing scene without any Bollywood hits to your name?
Yes, it's true that I haven't yet explored my playback career nor I have been a part of a reality contest, though I was a participant on one of the seasons of Indian Idol years ago, but was a part of the show for a very brief period of time.

Let me agree to the fact that singing for films definitely gives an artist a head-start and instant fame and recognition since you are able to reach out to a much larger audience than you would otherwise be able to do individually.

It also helps in marketing an artist and gives the right exposure and push and it might be traditionally the best for an artist to be noticed. But beyond that, how your chart your course, you further your craft, groom yourself and how you showcase it is all upto you.

What was the creative drive for your recent single - Midnight Jazz?
These are two songs I absolutely love – “Shaam Bhi Koi” and “Ajeeb Dastan”. I wanted to create something that involved both these tracks. My programmer and I brainstormed on the possibilities and came up with the idea of creating a jazz version combining the two tracks. And I’m so glad that people have given us such great feedback on our single.