Jonita Gandhi who’s known for her Bollywood success is also embarking into a new chapter of crafting her own sound and reveals who she really is with the release of her new EP Love Like That.
South Asian-Canadian artist Gandhi joined The Brandon Gonez Show in an intimate and fun conversation about her musical journey and exciting debut of her new EP. She also talked about her journey growing up in Canada before moving to Mumbai, India where her musical success began to take off and what her life experiences have taught her so far.
Gandhi’s 2006 Canadian Idol audition
Gandhi looks back at her earlier days before hitting the world stage when she was just a teenager who auditioned to be on the reality singing TV show Canadian Idol.
She said she performed “Killing Me Softly With His Song” by the Fugees.
However, the judges were questioning what type of genre she identifies with and she said she felt very confused, but told them, “I think I’m an R&B singer.”
She explained that they were asking her to perform in Hindi, since her profile mentioned she performed in Bollywood
Gandhi says the audition didn’t go as planned when they told her, “I don’t think that you think you know who you are.”
As a result she told Brandon, “I ended up not getting selected.”
However, she was proud of herself because she made it through the past two rounds of the audition process.
Gandhi shares how she’s finding her identity
Gandhi’s outstanding musical success living in Mumbai for the past ten years has made her a renowned singer by appearing in some of Bollywood’s biggest films. Her debut in Bollywood as a playback singer of “Chennai Express” in 2013 was the beginning of a flourishing career in the Indian film music scene.
She also shared with Brandon her struggles with identity.
“I was struggling with this whole identity thing,” Gandhi told Brandon.
She says being born in India, but raised in Canada, she was surrounded with a rich diversity of culture and music and that she wasn’t able to identify what her sound was until later on.
“I would love singing R&B, pop, but then I’d also love singing Hindustani classical music and Indian Bollywood songs,” she said.
Gandhi told Brandon that she didn’t think it was possible to combine her love of genres until now with her new project.
“It’s cool, like I said everything happens for a reason,” she added.
Debut of new EP Love Like That
Gandhi says she hopes her new solo project will allow people to discover who she truly is and not what people may have perceived of her over the years.
“I’m trying to reinvent all the time and I’m trying to train people to finally know who I am cause over the years I feel like they’ve listened to me in a lot of ways and seen me in a lot of ways, but they weren’t necessarily authentically me,” she revealed to Brandon.
She also recommends if people want to know more about her then they should tune into her latest tracks.
“The four songs that we picked for this I feel like are the most representative of where I’m at musically, but also they kind of give you an intro into my story, they give you the vibe of where I’m from, where I was brought up, how all my worlds are combining,” she said.
She told Brandon the concept of her song, “Love Like That,” is about forbidden love.
Brandon tried to put her on the hot seat asking if she’s currently in love and she responded, “I’m in love with myself,” and began singing in acapella to her track, then told him, “It’s about me.”
In addition to her new music, Gandhi said all her songs on her project are multilingual.
To watch the full interview, head over to The Brandon Gonez Show YouTube channel where you can hear more about her story and what’s next in her musical journey.
