ONLINE STAR DEV RAIYANI STRIKES THE RIGHT MUSIC CHORD
It would have been easy for Dev Raiyani to stay in the comfort zone of being a successful digital content creator, but he has branched out and is now also making a name for himself in the music industry.
The multi-talented 20-year-old – who has nearly 400,000 Instagram followers and more than 123,000 YouTube subscribers –has taken the leap from creating entertaining videos online, to carving out a career as a singer with accomplished songs like Wait4me, Cool Boy and Thinking Back, along with a recent four-city tour of India.
The growing musical momentum behind the rising star, who was born and brought up in Mumbai, has turned him into an r’n’b artist worth watching.
Eastern Eye caught up with the singer, songwriter and musician, currently studying in the US, to discuss his unique rise, balancing digital content creation with songs, a person he admires and future plans.
Why did you want to be a content creator, and did you imagine becoming so successful?
As an 11-year-old kid, I used to binge YouTube videos all the time, and somehow all the creators I liked were as unconventional as me. For the first time, I saw people appreciate that weirdness rather than bully someone for it. So, starting a YouTube channel was to create a safe space for me to truly express my weirdness, along with my love for music.
What led you towards music?
Listening to good and new music has always been a large part of my life. I have been through several phases of genres, depending on the time of my life. One day, during lockdown, I decided to translate my love for listening to music into making music I love, so everyone could listen to it on repeat – like a custom song for my ears.
How would you describe your sound?
In India, I feel, it’s something that has not been explored enough yet. My sound is all over the place, but mostly, it’s alternative rock and hip-hop that has meaning behind it. It combines very random and chaotic yet harmonic elements. Harmony is a huge part of my music-making process.
Who have been your greatest musical influences?
I would say most of my influences are from the western side of the world. Artists including Kid Cudi, Joji, Kanye West and Tyler the Creator would be at the top of the list.
What has been your most memorable musical moment?
My recent the Percentage India Tour. The tour was very nerve-wracking and overwhelming. We travelled to four cities in the span of five days, performing every night with more than 1,000 people in attendance, but it was all worth it. It took five months of planning and execution from the team, but that has to be one of the best moments of my life, as well as my musical journey.
What can we expect next from you?
I myself don’t know what to expect because I am so random with what I want and what I do. But I am working on new music every day, trying to find my sound. My process is, I’ll make a song, spend four hours on it and then scrap it. It’s fun, but that’s how it is. You have to find the right sound, and harmony.
Which of your unreleased songs are you most excited about?
Recently, I created a song which is very different from what I usually do. I tried using different sounds and tested my singing to a level I haven’t. It’s still not the sound I want, but that comes with mixing and mastering, which I am learning through YouTube tutorials and online resources right now.
Who would you love to collaborate with?
Joji. He is the one that inspired me to express myself through music, and I am going to work hard and reach a place where I can collaborate with him one day. I know it’s a big dream, but we stay positive out here.
Who is your music hero?
Once again, Joji. He used to be a YouTuber, going by the name of Pink Guy, and I grew up watching him as a kid. He truly didn’t care about what anyone thought of him, which I admired the most. He transitioned from creating really weird content to being a talented artist, which no other person in the history of YouTube has been able to do, and that has inspired me the most.
What music dominates your playlist?
It keeps changing – there’s not one genre I can point to that I prefer. But right now, I am obsessed with deep house music. I play it 24/7, just in the background. I’m always bopping my head, so much to the point where my neck hurts.
Will you carry on balancing music with creating content online?
Who knows? I don’t like to have decisions for the future in my life. I’ve grown past that. I have no clue where or what I am going to do in the next 10 years, and I love that.
What inspires you?
My failures and Kanye West.
Why do you love music?
It’s a medium to feel emotions without saying or thinking anything. It’s a universal language that every single person on this planet understands. Music is the single most beautiful thing to ever exist.
Instagram: @devraiyanii
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A seated Jain enlightened teacherAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Ganesha from JavaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Chinese silk painting depicting the BuddhaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
ArdhanarishvaraAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Head of a grimacing yakshaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
NagaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Bimaran casketAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Hunia Chawla
A still from rehearsal
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
The cast of Marriage Material in key moments from the play, including Avita Jay, Kiran Landa, Omar Malik, Irfan Shamji and Anoushka Deshmukh
Sathnam Sanghera’s 'Marriage Material' adapted into bold new play on conformity
The play Marriage Material at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel of the same name, which first came out in 2013.
She is lucky to have Iqbal Khan direct Marriage Material. The play, a co-production with the Birmingham Rep, is set in the late 1960s. Mr and Mrs Bains (played by Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay) run a corner shop in Wolverhampton. Their younger daughter, Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh), is 16, her sister Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) is just a bit older.
They have a neighbour, Patwant Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), who, as we shall soon see, is not a very pleasant man. In fact, he comes across just as racist as Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West for the Tories from 1950 to 1974.
It will be recalled this was a time when Sikhs working on the buses were told they couldn’t wear a turban. That was a hard-fought battle that had to be won.
The Bains, meanwhile, simply want to get their girls married off.
Nothing new here, I thought.
What makes the tale different is that the plot twists and turns down the generations. Mr Dhanda, who has the makings of a paedophile, makes a pitch for one of the girls when Mr Bains dies early in the play. “A life with no man in the house is no life,” he informs the newly widowed Mrs Bains.
Mr Dhanda has a wife but she has returned to India so he considers himself to be a free man.
Surinder’s English teacher from school, Miss Flanagan (Celeste Dodwell), who is also head of the fifth form, tells Mrs Bains about her daughter: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but she is bright. Ridiculously bright.”
She adds: “Mrs Bains, I think it would be a pity if Surinder didn’t stay on at school.” The initial response from Mrs Bains is not encouraging: “Too much education makes people’s brains get mixed up, they don’t sleep at night…”
But she is finally persuaded that Surinder should be allowed to stay on for a while longer before being married off.
Mr Bains was very old school. When Surinder confides she would one day like to be “a somebody”, he is amused that “my daughter wants to be a somebody”.
“Like you,” she tells her father.
Mr Bains consoles his daughter: “We will find a somebody for you to marry.”
At the point of a possible marriage, however, Surinder is sweet-talked by chocolate salesman Jim Wilson (Tommy Belshaw) into running away with him. They share a love of literature, and he calls her “Sue Bains”. But the relationship does not end well.
Once she has left, Surinder is written off as “dead” by her family. The story that is circulated is that she was only 16 when she was killed in a car crash. That’s better than to let on that she ran off with a white man.
By the time she is reconciled with her sister towards the end of the play, a great deal has changed. Kamaljit married Tanvir Banga (Omar Malik), a young man who helped out in the Bains’ corner shop. When the two sisters meet again, Tanvir has also died. But he and Kamaljit had a son, Arjan Banga (Jaz Singh Deol doubles up for this role after the death of Mr Bains). He has come home after his father’s death to help his mother who is still running the family corner shop.
Meanwhile, Mr Dhanda’s business has prospered. He now has a son, Ranjit Dhanda (the role is taken by Omar Malik after Tanvir’s death), and he is nearly as unpleasant as his father.
Arjan has an English fiancée, Claire (Celeste Dodwell). In London, Arjan worked as a creative director. But after deciding to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, he decides he cannot marry Claire because she is white. In other words, Asians are not free of racism, either. Happily, at the end, the couple are reconciled.
As for Surinder, she parted company with Jim Wilson after realising he was all talk, depended on her for money and had failed to earn a penny from his literary pretensions. She had prospered, though, as a hotel owner and had been transformed in time into a well-groomed businesswoman. After being tracked down by Arjan, she decides to return to her roots in Wolverhampton and help Kamaljit run the family corner shop. Perhaps 50 years had passed during the passage of the play.
Being subjected to racism turned some Asians into racists themselves. The word goreh (white person) is repeatedly spat out with venom. Maybe it is worth remembering the play’s audience isn’t exclusively Asian – white folk are watching as well. And maybe some of the toilet humour ridiculing white people, which always makes me cringe, could be cut out.
In Sanghera’s novel, there is a quote from Enoch Powell’s speech in November 1968: “The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a west Indian or an Asian still... he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one. Time is running out against us and them. With the lapse of a generation or so we shall at last have succeeded – to the benefit of nobody – in reproducing ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’ the haunting tragedy of the US.”
In Marriage Material, where the acting is marvellous (apart from Mr Dhanda’s Indian mannerisms and accent being overdone) we do travel across a couple of generations.
There is a scene when Tanvir rejects Mr Dhanda’s vision of creating a little Punjab in Wolverhampton.
Mr Dhanda wants to take over the Bains’ corner shop and is putting pressure on Tanvir to sign the papers. He says: “In this country, money is the path to freedom.”
“Sign, please,” he instructs Tanvir. “We must make sure our children learn to behave nicely, according to our rules.”
He insists: “We maintain our identity so we can be ourselves.”
Tanvir disagrees: “We can be us here. With the goreh.”
Dhanda warns him: “Then we will be inviting chaos.”
Tanvir’s comment is telling: “You sound like Enoch.”
Kamaljit, who is expecting a baby with her husband Tanvir, says: “I would like my child to grow up knowing the history of the Gurus and to read the Granth Sahib. And to love their culture.”
Tanvir tells his wife: “I would like my child to go to the finest schools, to cheer for England in the World Cup and eat Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday.”
Kamaljit sets out a dream that has perhaps come to pass with many third and fourth generation British Asians: “Maybe our child can do both.” Much, much later, in a throwback to the past, we learn of Surinder’s O-level results: “Biology A, Chemistry A, English Language A, English Literature A, French A, History B, Latin A, Mathematics A, Physics A…”
Kamaljit tells her younger sister: “Never mind about the B.”
And that is quintessentially Asian. Their acting is outstanding.
Marriage Material is at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until June 21, and at the Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5