Celebrating creativity: Mehr Saini’s journey to becoming a rising artist in Calgary
By Reyam Jamaleddine, July 16 2024—
Having a hobby, passion, dream or vision can be daunting, especially when your day-to-day life doesn’t align with what your soul resonates with. Students often face this inner turmoil and try to find their calling ourside of their academic identiy. The Gauntlet spoke to a rising artist at the University of Calgary about her journey into the spotlight and the shadows she learned to overcome.
Mehr Saini is a Bachelor of Science student at the University of Calgary. She is an up-and coming-artist exploring and presenting her musical talents and expertise whilst being a student.
In an interview with the Gauntlet, Saini shares her story and uses her voice to express her experience as a beginning artist and lover of music.
Saini explains how music has always been a part of her life and how that led to her entering the world of production and embarking on her musical journey.
“Ever since I was young, I loved music. We would be in the car listening to different songs and I would just be in the back singing along to every lyric. So it’s been in me ever since I was little and it was always my dream to put on my own music, but I never really put it into motion until quarantine happened,” said Saini.
Music production is a very expensive pursuit. It can cost up to as much as $500 per song that is produced. It takes serious perseverance and talent in the realm of music production. From making beats, to writing songs all the way to the technicalities of recording the songs in studio mode.
“So that’s when my brother taught me how to produce my music. So I use an app called Ableton, and I’ve self taught myself how to produce my own music. I work in my little home studio here and I just I feel like music is something so spiritual for me, it just feels like a calling.”
“Whenever I do music I just feel so in tune with myself and I feel like everyone should have something like that in their life, something other than school, something other than work. When you do music, you don’t feel like you’re working. If anyone can find their zone, I think that is so beautiful and everyone should have that.”
Saini explains her experience with balancing her life with that of her musical career. According to her, it is not typical of any other type of job or career. Being a musician and a student is not a task put up for the weak. It requires perseverance and a general love for the art and game of it all. In addition to the self-turmoil that can be faced in the midst of self-doubt and stress, the challenge of facing putting yourself out for the masses to view, judge and critique your art is an unrelenting, daily challenge. Creativity is often negatively critiqued for shallow reasons and unfounded judgments for artistic peoples. For a change, let’s celebrate and lift up creativity.
“It’s not like a nine to five where you clock in. You work, and then you go out. No, your entire life is music. I’m in the shower, and I think of a melody or something. I keep it in my head, and then I record it directly in my voice memos. That’s what I love about being an artist, for sure is that it’s not overpowering, but it’s in every aspect of your life and it helps you feel more connected to it, for sure.” said Saini.
Recently, Saini released her first single Complicate it. This debut single has alongside it a debut music video, Saini explains what led to the decision of releasing this specific song.
“This one just felt so right. So I performed it at times, a headline show last August, and then I got a really really good response to it. So I worked on kind of cleaning it up a little bit vocally, and then I sent it over to something called mixing and mastering, and they kind of just edit the song, like the sound frequencies and stuff to make it ready for release,” said Saini.
“Creating that video was one of the most special moments, for sure about the whole process, I had my best friends there with me from morning to night. Everyone was working so hard we took so many shots of the same scene, just to make sure. We had my friend, who also goes to U of C there as well as the male lead, and we decided to go for a detective theme.”
According to Saini, although being a student and pursuing an artistic career has its downsides, these factors are something she can look past because of her passion for the craft. Being a woman in a male dominated industry is daunting, and she expresses that experience.
“Overall, I’m just a very shy person. But when it comes to music I genuinely want it so bad. So you kind of have to put all those other external opinions away. You just have to do it genuinely. For me, just because I love music so much, and I want it so badly. I don’t want anything to come in the way of that,” said Saini.
“It was definitely hard, keeping my head up in an industry that is so male dominated, I realized I’ve been to so many studio sessions, and it’s all been with men. A lot of girls sing, but not a lot of them also produce. So keeping your head up in that place where it’s just men everywhere is definitely a bit tough.”
Saini is a South Asian Punjabi woman, she shared her experience of being an artist and blending the cultures of her heritage alongside typical Western musical styles.
“I am Punjabi so I really want to blend in aspects of my heritage into my music. I know a lot of people are doing that right now,” said Saini.
“Growing up, I rejected so many parts of my culture because I was embarrassed but seeing the rise of Punjabi artists like Diljit (Diljit Dosanjh) and AP (AP Dhillon), and they’re from Canada, so that really inspired me and made me so proud, because they put Punjab on the map with their music.”
“I feel like it’s also like my responsibility in a way. I’m just so proud of who I am in that aspect. So I wanna include that in my music, too. I know my mom loves that, too. She’s always giving me ideas like mixing Hindi within my songs. Music helped me fall in love with my culture for sure and I want to give back in a way.”
Stream Saini’s debut single Complicate it here. To learn more about Mehr’s journey follow her Instagram page here.
This article is a part of our Voices section and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Gauntlet editorial board.