Harmonious content

Tanzeel Khan

What goes around comes around. When Tanzeel Khan had made a song and recorded a video in early 2020, intending it as a simple gift for a friend, little did he realise that the sweet gesture would kick-start his career as a musician. Khan had already gained a fair amount of popularity as a content creator by then (his Instagram page has over 8.4 lakh followers at present). But being a musician hadn't been on his radar, until his friend told him that he should post the song he'd written for her on YouTube. The Mumbaikar did so, and flew off to the Maldives for a two-week long vacation, forgetting all about the track. But he was astonished to find upon his return that the video had garnered a massive amount of hits despite it being a DIY, guerilla kind of effort. That's when he figured that music could well be an alternative career option for him.

But he'd been writing poetry ever since he was eight years old. Now almost 21, he tells us, "In school, when people talked about musical talent, I felt as if I had it but couldn't express it. I did realise that I could write poetry well, though. I thought I'd become a lyricist, and then when the song I'd made for my friend did well, it motivated me to become a musician."

A still from the video for Falsafa, a song from Dastaan

That motivation has now resulted in Dastaan, Khan's upcoming album from which four tracks have already been released. It features easy-to-approach songs in Hindi that talk about love and longing, and Khan explains how being a popular content creator is an automatic crutch for his career as a musician. He says, "See, had I been with a label, then they would have ensured that my songs reach enough people as soon as they are launched. That's not the case here since I work independently. But over five years, I have built a base as a content creator, which means that my music also has that same base audience automatically. That really helps me promote my material."

Khan adds that there is another angle to being a content creator that aids his music - envisioning videos comes naturally to him. He tells us about how he's thought of Dastaan as a musical web series of sorts, where each individual video is connected to tell a broader story. Sometimes, he even uses music to promote societal harmony, as was evident in Maula, a single he'd realised earlier that makes a clear case for Hindu-Muslim unity. Khan says over the phone, "Right now, while talking to you, there is a dhaaga from a mandir tied on my hand. We are all human beings first; I don't believe that we are different. But there are people from both sides who have to put up with nonsense at times [born out of religious conflict]. I think music can play a big part in alleviating that because when you listen to a song, you enter a different zone, and that leaves a huge impact on you."

The youngster also reveals that his plan going forward is to juggle both roles. "If I dedicate one hour in a day to content creation, I will leave four to five hours aside for music since it takes more time. But music will remain my priority in the future since that's where my passion lies," he says, indicating again how the sweet gesture of gifting his friend a song came around to pay him back in a big way, kick-starting a career that he'd always been interested in but failed to express while in school.

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