Musician Jassie Gift on his two-decade-long career, his latest collaboration ‘Thakthom’ and more 

The Afro hip-hop song ‘Thakthom’ is a collaboration with Ireland-based Malayali musicians and influencers Reyan and Melvin

During his 20-year career as a musician, Jassie Gift never limited himself to a particular tone, tongue or temperament for his music. Since his debut album in 2003, the singer-composer has produced songs that have attained cult classic status, and they continue being played at college festivals, school excursions and road trips. Jassie’s compositions, once the catchy soundtrack of viral TikTok trending videos, still pop up on Instagram reels with influencers shaking a leg to his chartbusters. The latest addition to the list of Jassie’s jams is an Afro hip-hop song, ‘Thakthom’ by Reyan and Melvin of the New Thira Productions based in Ireland featuring the veteran musician. The video has garnered over three lakh views on YouTube since its release in October.

“Reyan and Melvin’s last album Thamburatti (released in 2022) was very popular in the UK. They are passionate and always want to do more. I have collaborated with them before. They reached out to me and that’s how I got to be featured in this song,” says Jassie. The duo currently residing in Dublin, has Malayali roots. “They started to make music to represent their culture abroad,” says Jassie.

Jassie’s collaborations with Reyan began last year when they were seen dancing to the tunes of Jassie’s hit song ‘Themma themma themmadikkaatte’, from the movie Rain Rain Come Again (2004), sung by Jyotsna Radhakrishnan in a video that went viral. 

Early days  

During his undergraduate days at the University College, Thiruvananthapuram, Jassie started as a freelance keyboardist for bands based in the city such as The Gypsies, Nine Hours, Baiju and the Band and so on. It was during this time that he dabbled in singing Western songs as well.  

“When we were in the band, we had to listen to all genres of songs as we would get requests. We would listen to country, hard rock, metal, soft rock...,” he recalls. 

Jassie also feels that his generation was fortunate from its early days, as it was exposed to the likes of MS Baburaj aka Babukka, and G Devarajan master, as well as the music of Pink Floyd; he calls himself a Floydian of that era.

In late 2003, the release of the music album, 4 the People, a Jayaraj-directorial, changed Jassie’s fate. This was the first audio release he ever had. Despite having composed in two movies, Bhibatsa and Saphalam before, this one offered him a chance to lend his voice to one of the songs. Jassie says that Jayaraj insisted on recording his voice. “I was staying away from singing Malayalam songs; I just wanted to be a composer. Then, I started singing the rap portions; I volunteered to Jayaraj sir, saying that I could do those portions of the song, but we had to get someone like Adnan Sami to do the lead vocals,” he says. However, during the shooting, Jayaraj used Jassie’s voice for the track and decided to retain him as the lead singer, thus making him the voice behind the hit song ‘Lajjavathiye’

During his stint of two decades in the music industry, Jassie has composed over 50 songs in Kannada and more than 20 in Malayalam. He has also composed multiple songs in Tamil and Telugu. He has sung over 200 songs each in both Malayalam and Telugu among other South Indian languages.  

 While having struck gold multiple times with his fast-paced songs, Jassie has also composed numerous melodies, such as ‘Oru noorashakal’ (Enittum), ‘Snehathumbi’ (December), and ‘Manikkinavin kothumbuvallam’ (Pokkiriraja), considering them his “comfort zone.” 

However, Jassie considers the opportunities to work with the people he grew up idolising to be the biggest highlight of his musical journey. “ Das (K J Yesudas ) sir is my biggest influence and inspiration, and I have worked with him; I got to sing for Shankar Mahadevan sir, and got him to sing for me. Shreya Ghoshal has sung 18 songs for me, and Sonu Nigam has done six. I got to work with the late KK, Javed Ali, LuckyAli... all these icons,” he says. 

Moving forward 

Currently, Jassie is planning to concentrate on live shows for the time being, with an Australian tour lined up from November 2 to 29 spanning over five cities. His live schedules sometimes get in the way of composing music, and he is trying to avoid that.  

He says, “I am currently focussing on live shows, but I do carry instruments and mic and everything. However, if we need to do a tune which we like, we would have to give it time.” 

Apart from his live gigs, Jassie is yet again going to work with director Jayaraj on an untitled project.

Published - October 30, 2024 02:40 pm IST