On 3 December, 2023, 34-year-old composer and producer Kabeer Kathpalia fulfilled a dream he had since faculty of performing on the NH7 Weekender music pageant in Pune. Accompanied by his good friend and longtime collaborator Savera Mehta and different artists on stage, Kabeer, who goes by the moniker ‘OAFF’, had his “full circle second”.

“The NH7 Weekender expertise was insane. Going to varsity in Pune, I attended among the earliest Weekender festivals as a fan. Again then, I bear in mind telling my mates that someday, I’d play on this sort of a stage. For some time, it didn’t occur and I began doing different issues together with producing music. In 2022, Savera and I began performing reside, after which, earlier this yr, the Weekender organisers invited us to play,” says Kabeer, talking to The Higher India.

Whereas on stage, Savera and OAFF carried out their newest launch ‘Hone Do Jo Hota Hai’ from the upcoming Netflix movie ‘Kho Gaye Hum Kahan’ with fellow composer Ankur Tewari and actors Siddhant Chaturvedi, Ananya Pandey and Adarsh Gaurav who function in it.

“It was a complete celebration on stage! And, all the things had come full circle,” he remembers.

Kabeer went from composing advert jingles for a number of years to releasing his debut single in 2018 with Savera. Finally, OAFF and Savera made a breakthrough in 2022 by composing the background rating and soundtrack for the movie ‘Gehraiyaan’ (starring Deepika Padukone).

Earlier than delving additional into Kabeer’s life and music, nevertheless, we requested him why he goes by the moniker ‘OAFF’. “The English phrase ‘oaff’ means a silly, awkward and foolish individual. And once I began placing out music, I didn’t wish to do it below my actual identify; I needed a creative identify. Arising with OAFF, nevertheless, was extra of an inside joke between my mates and me. And I simply associated to that form of an individual, saved that as my stage identify and it form of caught,” he says.

‘Music as a method to specific issues I can’t say with phrases’

Born and raised in Ahmedabad in a half-Punjabi and half-Gujarati household, Kabeer remembers rising up in a family crammed with avid music listeners.

“My grandfather was a giant music buff when it comes to listening to Indian and Western classical music. In the meantime, my father listened to a variety of Pink Floyd and The Beatles,” he remembers.

Kabeer remembers his mother and father placing him into completely different experimental faculties. In truth, for 2 years (in Lessons 6 and seven), he attended one such boarding faculty in Andhra Pradesh. Right here, he remembers one in every of his core reminiscences of moving into music.

“Certainly one of my core reminiscences of moving into music got here throughout my transient stint at this boarding faculty. Within the evenings, I do not forget that whereas everybody was out enjoying completely different sports activities, I used to be indoors listening to the Pulse album by Pink Floyd and studying books. That’s such an abiding reminiscence as a result of someplace down the road I began realising that music was a manner for me to precise issues that I couldn’t say with phrases,” he remembers.

Following his two-year stint there, he went again to Ahmedabad and enrolled in a global faculty the place he met Savera for the primary time. Despite the fact that he didn’t realize it then, this encounter and their subsequent friendship would change Kabeer’s life most remarkably.

“In school, Savera had an electrical guitar, and someday, he allowed me to take it dwelling and take a look at my hand at it. We quickly shaped a punk rock band in highschool enjoying cowl songs. As soon as I began enjoying, I slowly began to immerse myself in learning music idea and attempting to grasp how issues work,” he says.

Transferring between science and music

Following highschool, Kabeer attended FLAME College, a non-public varsity in Pune, the place he was learning arithmetic and physics.

“Initially, I needed to grow to be a theoretical physicist. My years in faculty had been principally about science, significantly physics and arithmetic. In addition to these pursuits, the one different factor that actually me in faculty was enjoying the guitar. Fortuitously, I additionally met a bunch of mates in faculty who had been actually experimenting with music,” he says.

Nevertheless, there was one good friend specifically from Nagaland, who actually helped Kabeer immerse himself additional in music and experiment with completely different sounds.

“Kuzo (his good friend) and I’d jam and give you all kinds of loopy concepts about music idea. However even at that time, music was one thing I did for enjoyable. As soon as I received finished with faculty, I informed my mother and father that I needed to take a yr off to make my very own music. Fortunately, they had been cool with this resolution. Kuzo and I quickly began making music at a studio we had arrange in Ahmedabad and began placing out our work on Fb, SoundCloud, and so forth,” he says.

A turning level got here when someday a model approached Kabeer and his good friend to make music for them for which they’d obtain remuneration.

“Finally, this led to extra such initiatives. Then I made a decision to make the transfer to Mumbai and see what the scene is like there. So, I made my method to Mumbai someday round 2014–15. Even at this level, I didn’t consider myself as a musician or a composer. I used to be simply glad that I used to be getting paid to make music. It was solely a few years later down the road that I started to simply accept the truth that I’m a music composer and that that is what I do,” he notes.

In Mumbai, Kabeer as soon as once more discovered Savera, they usually started by making advert jingles for manufacturers.

“Actually, I didn’t know the way individuals made cash by means of music however quickly came upon that folks pay composers good cash for advert jingles. As soon as a director gave me an advert to work on, and issues simply picked up. Earlier than we knew it, Savera and I had composed a whole lot of jingles,” he says.

Regardless of common jam classes and composing songs of their free time, it was solely in 2018 when Kabeer (below the OAFF moniker) and Savera launched their first unbiased tune ‘For A Whereas’.

What took him so lengthy to place out his first tune on-line?

“As most musicians who put out their music for the primary time, you by no means really feel it’s utterly prepared. There may be at all times that feeling that you are able to do extra. I had been serious about placing out music for therefore a few years and someday determined to not overthink it. So, I simply dropped ‘For A Whereas’ on-line and left it alone,” remembers Kabeer.

After releasing it, he forgot concerning the tune. A few weeks later, a good friend of his informed him that the tune had blown up on Spotify producing a very good variety of streams. Suffice to say, he was sceptical concerning the claims his good friend had made. “As soon as I went on Spotify and checked the streaming numbers, it gave me larger confidence to place out extra music,” he provides.

‘Gehraiyaan’

A few years earlier, Kabeer remembers having watched director Shakun Batra’s movie Kapoor & Sons on the theatre and coming away from it pondering that someday he would like to compose music for his movies.

“I got here out of the theatre pondering he has such good style [in music]. Quick ahead to 2020 and I had launched ‘Perpetuate’, an instrumental observe. A yr later, I received this direct message (DM) from Shakun Batra on Instagram asking me if I’d meet him for this new mission (Gehraiyaan) he was engaged on. I jumped on the likelihood to fulfill him,” he remembers.

“Shakun needed Savera and me to do the background rating for the movie as a result of he noticed that the instrumental observe [I had put out] fitted properly into the sonic and emotional palette of music he was seeking to probe for this movie. After all, he requested us for demos and did his due diligence on us to see whether or not we may deal with a mission of this magnitude,” he provides.

They received the background rating gig, which was huge for them. However as Savera and Kabeer had been doing the background rating, they started questioning who was composing the songs.

“We requested him how Savera and I may compose songs for the movie. He informed us that composing songs was somewhat completely different proposition as a result of it requires approval from the producer and that there have been huge composers pitching songs for the movie too. However Shakun informed us that if Savera and I may ship songs whereas having the time and bandwidth to the rating work as properly, we should always go for it. Savera and I made a decision that we should always ship him a tune at the least,” he says.

After developing with a bunch of concepts, they despatched a tough demo for what finally turned ‘Doobey’ — the standout observe from the Gehraiyaan album — and it received authorised. Shakun had additionally heard a tune of Kabeer’s known as ‘Frontline’, which in a while turned the title observe ‘Gehraiyaan’.

“After sending in two songs, we requested if we may ship in one other one. Shakun responded by saying that we should always do the entire album,” he provides.

Course of of creating music

“Primarily, we begin off with a vibe we are attempting to discover. We’ll fiddle with our devices and attain some extent the place we really feel that that is an attention-grabbing vibe to discover. After which we’ll put down the melody, which might often be in English,” he explains.

“Initially, we’ll kind of write an English pop tune as a result of that’s the form of music we grew up listening to and it’s simpler for us to phrase it in that [language]. We’ve got this manufacturing with an English melody after which we current it to the director/producer. As soon as it will get authorised, the lyricist is available in after which begins writing Hindi lyrics to the identical English melody. This can be a course of in itself as a result of each language has its personal nuances,” he provides.

For a film like Gehraiyaan, Kabeer explains that the background rating and songs primarily serve the story and the characters. Given the truth that the film doesn’t have a standard song-and-dance routine with actors dancing or lip-syncing to songs, the target of creating music right here is about taking the story forward. For the reason that background rating has no lyrics, it’s about creating the stress a scene requires. A tune, in the meantime, gives a special contact.

Two years since Gehraiyaan, nevertheless, their course of of creating music has modified somewhat bit.

“The best way during which we have now barely altered our strategy to creating music is that now we have now form of understood the construction of [song] writing somewhat higher. We’re additionally actively attempting to be taught Hindi somewhat higher in order that we don’t have to do that English-to-Hindi factor each time. The opposite huge distinction is that Savera and I usually are not in the identical metropolis anymore. That means of sitting on the identical laptop computer and doing issues collectively doesn’t occur on a regular basis,” he says.

Atmospheric Pop

Like most artists, Kabeer doesn’t just like the notion that his music may be pigeonholed right into a sure style. But when we had been to explain his music sensibility, he prefers the time period ‘atmospheric pop’.

“On the one hand, I hearken to a variety of instrumental music whether or not it’s simply guitars or digital music. I really like that form of music due to the introspective feeling it offers me. Then again, I additionally love pop music, understanding its dynamics, methods to write a very good hook and preserve the viewers engaged, and so forth. Initially, the objective was to mix each these components into my music. Tracks like Gehraiyaan, Doobey and Bahaane have this electronica music sensibility within the manufacturing nevertheless it’s received pop song-writing as properly. For the Netflix movie ‘Kho Gaye Hum Kahan’ slated for launch on 26 December, we’ve gone for a extra indie rock vibe,” he explains.

“That’s not purely electronica music anymore, it’s one thing else now. It’s a part of our evolution as artists. The concept is to do one thing new which hasn’t been explored sonically in Bollywood. We wish to work with sounds that aren’t usually explored in Bollywood,” he provides.

In the meantime, Kabeer’s latest success has given him the prospect to collaborate with completely different artists together with the likes of Arijit Singh and Javed Akhtar.

“The work I’ve finished up to now has now given me entry to extra individuals I wish to collaborate with. However the holy grail is AR Rahman. Overlook collaborating, I simply wish to meet him, see him work, and be taught from him. I’d love to grasp his course of of creating music,” he says.

(Edited by Pranita Bhat; Photos courtesy Instagram/oaffmusic)