When 'Jinkemarina' met 'Lajjavathiye'

Two extremely talented Malayali music directors and one album to look forward to. You may have never ever heard of ethno-pop, but be prepared to hear a lot more of this upcoming genre as two of the biggest musical names from Kerala come together for a brand new album.

Emil Mohammed (Jinkemarina) and Jassie Gift (Lajjavathiye) have their fans all across South India and quite incomparably, the duo also have hits in all four South Indian languages too. With a track record like that, it was imperative that at some point of time they would combine their talents, no? Add to that the fact that they are also contemporaries and you know why this album is the most exciting piece of music news we’ve heard in awhile.

“We have always deeply appreciated each others’ musical styles and so when we finally got the time to compose something we jumped at the idea,” says Emil Mohammed as we catch up with him on the phone.

“This will be our debut international album and we’ve decided to call it Desi Sanyasi. Basically, we both like Indian ethnic beats and the kind of music we can call our own. We’ve used this as the base and mixed it with more trending pop forms from the west and hence the genre— ethno pop. We like what we’ve created so far and the album will be out soon,” adds Emil.

Jassie Gift in the meantime is still busy with his other projects including D Company in Malayalam and Thiruvasakam in Tamil.