Ananya Birla talks about breaking stereotypes with her single Unstoppable and about her debut EP
With her debut EP that she dropped a few days ago, Ananya Birla feels like she is sharing a part of herself with the world. Ergo, it’s called Fingerprint. The entrepreneur-cum-musician tells us, “Like all my music, it has its roots in personal experience: putting it together has been painful at times, but totally cathartic. The tracks are mostly about love – the beautiful bits, but the darker side, too.”
Her favourite track off it is Blackout, which is all about disconnecting from the craziness of the modern world. “It’s about the importance of taking a bit of time to appreciate the journey without focussing too much on the destination,” she informs us. The song is also close to her heart because she always wanted to incorporate hip-hop into one of her works, and she worked with artistes Vector and WurlD.
Ananya calls the EP a natural progression to releasing singles such as Livin’ the Life, Meant to Be, Circles and Hold On. Another song she’s gung-ho about is Unstoppable, which opens with her smashing a wall with graffiti, ‘just a rich kid’, ‘impossible’, ‘you’re too young’, etc. “People have been trying to label me all my life but with everything I have done – starting my own business as a teenager, heading to a different country for college (Oxford University) or moving into music – I’ve tried to create my own identity beyond my surname,” says the founder of Svatantra Microfin, an organisation that provides loan to women entrepreneurs in rural India, and Kumar Mangalam Birla and Neerja Birla’s daughter.
The anthem features 12 eminent women such as Neerja Birla, Mary Kom, Sania Mirza, Juhi Chawla, Pooja Hegde, Aparna Popat, Gabriella Demetriades, Anusha Dandekar, Sukriti Kakar, Kanika Kapoor, Karishma Chavan, Malini Agarwal and Falguni Peacock. With the track, she wanted to celebrate women who have bulldozed gender stereotypes, smashed through glass ceilings and broken some ‘rules’ to achieve great things.
Ananya’s upcoming work is a track with Jamaican-American singer-songwriter, rapper and record producer Sean Kingston. “We met when I opened for him at a concert in Goa and really hit it off. We agreed to meet up and jam when I was next in LA, which we did last month, and had so much fun with the song,” says she. The musician also looks forward to live shows around the world and some awesome collaborations in coming months.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "Ananya Birla")
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}