I am just a vagabond: Singer Sona Mohapatra

It is perhaps the raw element in her voice that lends an intense tone to her music. An earthy voice that doesn’t fail to draw the listener to her melodies — the numbers 'Aaja Ve', 'Abhi Nahin Aana', 'Bolo Na', 'Tere Ishq Nachaya', etc all testimony to it.

And now Sona Mohapatra is set to launch her new songs 'Dil Jale' and 'Paas Aao Na' on a web platform as she is convinced that music lovers have shifted from television to internet. “If you need to connect with the youth, the internet needs to be your playground,” asserts Mohapatra. This is another reason that she is active on the social media. “It is the need of the hour. Who turns on the TV to listen to music? The mobile phone has become the new music store,” she says.

Mohapatra believes that after decades of packing in glamour and entertainment within music videos, “We are heading back to making serious music with simple videos,” she explains. In fact, the video of her track 'Aaja Ve' was actually shot on a real street side location with the local kids dancing to the track with no kind of choreography involved.

“I’m just a vagabond,” says Mohapatra who loves to travel and explore new places. Music, travelling and food are her favourites.

She also likes to ponder over her ideas and tunes before she actually gets down to working on them. Trained in Hindustani classical, she has also collaborated with the Australian band INXS to come up with the desi version of the popular romantic track

Afterglow and has also worked with famous DJ John OO Fleming.
She acknowledges the fact that “there’s an overwhelming umbrella of Bollywood that looms over Indian music”, however, “it’s time we take control of things and stop cribbing,” she says.