Meet 11-yr-old ‘Rock goddess’ who floored America’s Got Talent

Ready to rock! #AGT 🤘🏾🤘🏾🤘🏾pic.twitter.com/va4MQoNdRC

— Terry Crews (@terrycrews) June 26, 2024

The interplay between Carnatic, rock and metal got Maya a standing ovation from everyone in the room, including judges Simon Cowell, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel, Sofia Vergara and Terry Crews. Cowell even dubbed her a “rock goddess”.

The telecast of the audition last weekend went viral on social media, giving the Chennai girl the wind beneath her wings and the confidence to pursue her genre-defying music. The YouTube video that’s floating around on social media has gathered over 23 lakh views. Maya will now be seen in the AGT semi-finals. Only 10 contestants proceed to the final round.

Since the telecast, Maya, who just turned 11, can’t stop googling her name, savouring the attention at her family home in Chennai’s MRC Nagar in Raja Annamalai Puram, a neighbourhood adjoining the cultural hub of Mylapore. “It’s been amazing. Every artiste who goes on stage to perform says that they want to keep going back for that same feeling. For me, as that standing ovation came in, I felt that same experience. I am excited about returning to the stage again whenever that happens next,” says an exuberant Maya in a conversation with The Indian Express over Zoom.

Sitting in her bedroom, before a wall shelf full of stuffed toys, she says the medley she performed at AGT is the kind of music she wants “to create in the future”.

Born to a Tamil father who owns an IT company and an Australian mother who works in the education sector, Maya grew up surrounded by Carnatic music which she imbibed from her grandmother who runs a Kolathur-based ashram in the memory of Yogi Ram Suratkumar, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo, and rock and metal, through her father, Neelakantan A, who would often play in the car and at home.

“I heard Metallica when I was about five and loved how energetic it sounded. I was always jumping around the house when I heard it,” says Maya, who began learning to play the guitar from her father at six and followed it up with some YouTube guitar lessons.

At eight, she discovered the American prog rock band Tool, “which is a genre on its own”, says Maya. Maya also stumbled upon a video of “Guitar Prasanna”, a US-based IIT Chennai and Berklee graduate who is a pioneer in performing Carnatic music on the guitar. “I didn’t know you could play this music on a guitar. Before I discovered them (Tool and Prasanna), it felt like something was missing from my music,” says Maya, who has been taking online classes from Prasanna for the last two years.

But what turned things around for her was a cover of Tool’s 7empest (pronounced Tempest). She recorded it in her room sitting next to her Peppa Pig toy and uploaded it on YouTube.

The video reached Tool guitarist Adam Jones himself. He got in touch with Maya and gave her advice on how to play better. Days later, he couriered her a signed Gibson guitar — the kind that he plays and is even named after him.

“That was special. And that’s the guitar I played on America’s Got Talent. We’ve been in touch ever since and I am very proud to have a friend like him,” says Maya, who also impressed guitarist Gary Holt, who plays for the legendary thrash metal band Slayer. He, too, recently gifted her a guitar, besides cheering for her at her Los Angeles audition along with Prasanna.

Neelakantan says that he never planned for the competition and it happened after a producer from America’s Got Talent invited Maya for an audition. He adds that everything also worked out for them as AGT allows contestants from all over the world to participate. “For us, it felt like a sign from the universe shaping a path for Maya and taking her on a special journey that is probably meant to happen… When most people hear Indian music, they link it to Bollywood. But Carnatic music is a hidden gem… Maya can inspire the new generation and make them understand how beautiful this ancient classical art from India is and how it blends so well with her other musical interests,” says Neelakantan, who was an astrophysics student in Australia when he met Maya’s mother Lorina.

In Chennai, after about five years of attending traditional school, which would exhaust Maya and not leave her much time for practice, she now attends school online. “We travel a lot so that’s a different kind of exposure too, besides allowing her to do what she loves,” says Lorina.

May even meditates, adding that it calms her down, followed by a guitar session, her academic online classes followed by some more guitar lessons and rehearsals. Maya adds that as much as she loves playing music by other musicians, she is keen on hard training so that she can find her path with original music. “What I did on the show was kind of a small part of what I want to be doing in the future,” says Maya.