Danu Innasithamby, TV personality, radio presenter, compeer, writer, actor and now…pop singer.
Adding yet another tag to this versatile young man’s impressive résumé, Danu has taken on the ambitious and daunting task of recording a song – in Sinhala, his third language.
And the result is 'Anuradha Nethu' – a ‘feelgood’ song, written by Himali Liyanage and produced by Raj and is both soothing and melodiously detailed. “The song's lyrics are beautiful. Vocally, hopefully, I have delivered,” says Danu.
His voice is refreshingly easy on the ears, and he does not pretend to be someone who’s been singing hardcore Sinhala music for two hundred years. Tamil being his first language, and English being the language he uses most frequently, Danu had a hard time mastering some of the more complex lines in the song.
“It was a bit of a challenge to learn the language, get the pronunciation right. I didn’t want to sound like a foreign guy trying to sound Sinhalese. I tried to get it down to at least 90% as much Sinhala as possible. I tried my level best, and I thought it worked out well,” he says. The producer Raj got a friend of his to help Danu out with getting the pronunciation just right, making sure the words’ meanings were not lost in his attempt to get them right.
Although this is Danu’s first ever ‘single’, music is nothing new to him. In fact, he’s been singing pretty much all his life. He was an active member of the St. Peter’s College Choir and has won a gold medal for his singing. His theatre and gospel backgrounds also played a part in the shaping up of his multifaceted voice box. But what really made him take the plunge?
“I see entertainers day in and day out, and I was thinking, ‘why shouldn’t I sing? I could do this too,’” he says. Danu has already made plans to record a second single, with Raj as Producer.
“I feel very comfortable with him. He’s done a Canadian movie called 1999 featuring some of the top South Asian singers. I think he can be like a Sri Lankan A. H. Rahman,” he prophesies. Among Raj’s better known works is the recent local chart topper Sanda Mithuri by maestro vocalist and musician Kasun Kalhara.
Even Danu’s song, 'Anuradha Nethu', with a lot of live guitar in the track, he says, has a Simple Plan touch to it, while insisting that it cannot be categorized into one single genre.
“It’s RnB, slow rock, I don’t really know what to call it. You can’t categorise it like that. Also, I didn’t want the music to sound very localised. I wanted it to have a Western touch. I appeal mainly to the English speaking market, so I wanted my music to appeal to that market. I didn’t want to deviate from it. Raj, too, told me that it’s a good idea to have both flavours balancing the song. Though there are no English lyrics, it has a balance to it that can appeal to both audiences,” says Danu.
Having completed the song in just over one and a half moths, Danu hopes to have a music video ready by the end of September.
As for his second track, Danu hopes to do something that he says hasn’t been attempted before in the local music scene.“It’s going to be a combination of Sinhala music and something very close to me… choral music. I don’t think any Sinhlaa song has been recorded this way, a song backed by a choir. Raj is excited about it, too,” he says, wrapping things up.
'Anuradha Nethu' was released yesterday and can now be heard on all local (Sinhala) radio stations. |
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