For Your Grammy® Consideration
Global Music Collective
Category: Best Global Music Album
Album Title: GMC India
Category: Best Global Music Performance
Track Title: Kab Tak Soyega
A years-long collaboration between 12 Indian and US artists to break genres and tackle big issues in our world.
Listen to the album
GMC India
Listen to the TRACK
Kab Tak Soyega
Kab Tak Soyega translates to "What are you made of?" Read more below...
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APPLE: https://music.apple.com/us/album/gmc-india-ep/1844943775
SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/0iuqYTsqjhJBdNMzdivchv?si=skyqdqjmREisfRv4X_VgDA
YOUTUBE: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lmEUNIPhrNunJJaCx4-UphbHdgDvQNpy8
AMAZON: https://music.amazon.com/albums/B0FVKGP4HQ
DEEZER: https://www.deezer.com/us/album/839408322
GAANA: https://gaana.com/album/gmc-india
JIOSAAVN: https://www.jiosaavn.com/album/gmc-india/azofHdT0QUA_
About the Album - GMC India
GMC India is a six-track album blending English, Hindi, and Punjabi lyrics with instrumentation and vocal traditions from Indian pop, classical, and folk music. It was produced in collaboration with India-based musicians. The songwriting and production intentionally incorporate regional musical expression across India representing traditional instrumentation, Sufi poetry interpretation, Carnatic styles like konnakol, Hindustani vocal styles, field sampling and regional rhythmic elements fused with contemporary pop and dance production. The result is an album squarely within global music's focus on cross-cultural musical excellence beyond traditional U.S. conventions.
Individual tracks feature a rotating set of India-based collaborators, reflecting the album's cross-cultural production process. This is a single unified artistic work conceived, written, and produced by Global Music Collective's core team, not a various-artists compilation. We respectfully note this for the Academy's eligibility review given the track-by-track variation in featured contributors.
Global Music Collective is credited as primary artist across 100% of the album's playing time.
Artists with >50% playing time: Richard Steighner, Kate Bass, Harpreet, and Santur Kundu.
Producers with >50%: Richard Steighner, Varun Gupta, Kate Bass
About the Track - Kab Tak Soyega
As we drove away from Delhi, a mountain appeared in the distance, buzzing with trucks. As we approached, we saw no mountain but a trash heap hundreds of meters tall.
We saw everything we’d thrown away in our pursuits of “whiter teeth, better skin” and “painted walls” all piled up “out of reach, out of town.” We saw teams of people wading through it, sorting our waste. We felt the heat and the smell weighing on the environment. In that moment we began writing Kab Tak Soyega (translated as “How Long Will You Sleep”).
Kate and I had traveled to India to collaborate with Indian artists over a month, chasing the question of what we all have in common. We ate together, walked together. We sweat and cried and complained and laughed and sang. What we found, from Delhi to our homes in Australia and USA, was the same growing inequality. Our ever-expanding systems have a direct impact on the environment and the human dignity of those that have to now live among the refuse. It is all separated by the need to consume more and more.
But Kab Tak Soyega is not an accusation. It is a wake up call (“Jaag ja re”) for us to reject the “cellophane” and reconnect with what matters. Sung back and forth between crisp English verses and deeply layered Hindi refrains, the song mirrors the way everyday items pile up on that mountain.
The production features uniquely Indian instruments matka (clay pot drum), rabab (a fretless lute), and pangi (seed shaker), Sufi inspired Hindi lyrics, and bi-lingual vocals. Layered with ‘Western’ production style, this collaboration includes 7 different artists.
This was released by our nonprofit organization dedicated to this and other cross-cultural collaborations rooted in gaining deeper understanding before recording. Thank you for your consideration.
Our main collaborators were Kate Bass, Richie “Robot” Steighner, Harpreet Singh, and Santur Kundu.
Prayer
Humayun
Kab Tak Soyega
Roads
Tum Kis Mitti
Nukhta
We are honored to have worked with some amazing collaborators: XPonent B, Sumant Balakrishnan, Srijonee Bhattacharjee, Varun Gupta, Sandeep Mishra, Amar Pandey, Avik Roy, Gyan Singh.
Production by Varun Gupta on Prayer, Humayun, Kab Tak Soyega, Roads, and Tum Kis Mitti.
Production by Richard Steighner on Nukhta
Videography by: Samar Manhotra and Birkunwar Singh
A tremendous thank you to our friend and primary donor, Vanessa Bergstedt. Your commitment to the arts and to our mission has revolutionized and turbo-charged our efforts. We are so grateful.
Special thanks: Anindo Bose, Nathulal Solanki, Manan Kathuria, JP, Saraj and family
Additional thanks to the incredibly wonderful Shreya Singh and Neha Ojha for their tireless and often thankless work in supporting and administering and paying for our programs!
Thank you to studio partners: Silent Noise Studio and Kintsugi Studios
Thank you as well to our yoga guide: Mallika Bajaj
Finally, a HUGE thank you to the 70+ donors who donated to this program on IndieGoGo! Our program was a featured fundraiser on their platform and without your help and financial support, we would not have been able to pull this off! The donations were listed as anonymous, but if you are reading this and you were a donor, please know we are honored and proud of your support. Thank you all!
