‘It’s classical musicians who break cultural barriers’: Rickey Kej at Expresso on Culture

Kej also spoke about his environmentalist outlook and his collaborations with veteran musicians such as Stewart Copeland, founder and drummer of the English rock band The Police. The two worked together on the album ‘Divine Tides’. Kej recalled how he decided to wait and see the results of Copeland’s musical decisions, which he might not have initially agreed with.

“I decided that I am going to hold on to it for two weeks… when I lived with that particular piece of music, or that particular idea, for more than two weeks, or two weeks, then I started gaining perspective, and I realised that he was right every single time,” Kej revealed.

PM Modi and climate change

Before his music career, Kej spent over 13 years in advertising, composing for an estimated 3,500 commercials. “I would wake up at 7 am and deliver the client’s brief by about 2 pm. It was the greatest learning experience I had in music,” he said.

Kej also spoke about his rapport with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, noting that culture and the arts are now seen as part of infrastructure and soft power. He recalled being invited to a meeting, where PM Modi suggested that he work on an album on climate change and unity, with artists from across the world. This later culminated in ‘Shanti Samsara’.

Speaking about artificial intelligence (AI) in music, Kej compared it to the arrival of virtual instrument programs in the 2000s. AI, he said, would simply be another tool—useful to create quick and generic musical compositions. Human composers would adapt it in musical compositions that displayed skill and innovation, he added.