Turned on by music.
In his father's footsteps
HE'S GOT a nice little goatee, is modellish, speaks Tamil with an accent, works a fluent Hindi, wears cargos, composes music and hardly looks like his father Kadri Gopalnath.
Mani Kanth Kadri still has not made it big time, but his pal and `promoter', John Vijay, tells you he's on his way there. May be.
His dad is his guru, his influence. ``Obviously,'' says Mani. Studying in Mangalore, he took to classical vocals early, learnt clarinet — ``My father wanted me'' — and, what else but the saxophone. ``My father and I used to discuss music a lot, usually about western influences on youngsters.'' All that worked.
On Mani's CV now are an album, `Dream Journey', and a movie, `Tantric Journal'. He almost didn't do them. He wasn't even thinking about composing music.
``After college, I came to Chennai and went for a software course,'' he says. ``I was completely into software.'' But one fated day, he remixed his dad's music with western background. ``My dad liked it very much.'' On another day, his friend Asif Ali taught him to jell music and computers. And Mani turned composer.
`Dream Journey' is just a year old and DJ II is on way. `Tantric Journal' has seen at least three film festivals — the Hawaiian, San Francisco and Tanzanian — and Mani might soon make an album of the score.
Right now, he's busy with `Mere Samne', a typical coming-of-age album. This one's for the youth. ``It will have romance, social message and lots of peppy numbers.'' And it will be in Hindi.
John takes over. ``As the only Hindi pop singer from the South, it will be easy to identify him. And, he will be on the national circuit.'' Also on a bigger market base. Makes sense, but there's another reason. Mani clearly is not great with Tamil. ``People ask me if I am a Malayalee.'' Offers John: ``He's been long in Mangalore so Hindi comes naturally to him.'' Whatever.
They are working on three videos for the album — the title track, a social message one dedicated to NGO `Asha for Education', and a peppy number. ``We are desperately searching for a very Thanjavur-looking girl for the album... have searched everywhere. We need a definite southern flavour for the album.'' For the Hindi album.
By Feroze Ahmed Photo: S. Thanthoni