Shillong Song: How Tipriti rode the blues and charted her own destiny.
Sharad Kohli
Tipriti ‘Tips’ Kharbangar has blazed a trail for her sisters all over India. “I was a small girl with nothing but a dream and a powerful voice, singing her heart out in the choir,” she told The Mind Diaries while prepping for this year’s Mahindra Blues Festival, which she opened. The fest also, for the very first time, featured an all-woman line-up, in the process becoming a testimonial to her singular talent and tenacity.
Because, music has been inseparable from Tipriti’s life, and the stage is where this blues singer comes into her own, a performer and entertainer fit to rank among the best the country has produced.
For over two decades now, the Shillong-born singer has gigged across India and the world, sharing space with (among others) Buddy Guy and Carlos Santana. From the church choir to sold-out live shows has been but a natural progression for ‘Tips’, who made her name as the frontwoman of Soulmate, a band she formed with fellow Shillong native Rudy Wallang.
Both continue to perform together while devoting time to their own musical projects, Tipriti busying herself with her new outfit, Mama Tips and the Mama’s Bois, and returning – gratefully – to her Khasi roots.“I have nothing to complain about – except that it’s very hard to get soulful musicians!” she shared in a heart-to-heart chat. Above all, Tipriti has found fulfillment on her own terms, defying the music industry’s casual and not-so-casual sexism with dignity and chutzpah. “As women, we always think for the last resort – we’re always ready!” No wonder she continues to inspire.
You began your career when there were very few women in the independent music scene. How much was it a challenge to navigate a male-dominated domain, and handle the suspicions, scepticism, and even – once you had established yourself as a blues singer of renown – the envy of industry gatekeepers?
When we played at pop/rock fests, I would say there were very few women. To be honest with you, when I first started, for me it was just something that I loved to do, and I did it with all my heart and my soul. And money was not even the first thing that came to my mind.So, I just followed my passion. That time, the gentlemen who were playing with me were the Great Society and Mojo guys – Ferdy Dkhar and all those guys. They were much older to me and I looked up to them as my mentors. So, I would listen and learn, because what I heard was very similar to what I would sing in church.
The amazing part is, the times when I would come to Delhi, I would meet these young women from JNU or LSR, who would often visit me because they had never seen anything like a woman singing the blues – they would be so amazed.
Also, at that time, women were not so open as they are now; they were shy and timid, and society did not accept them being upfront and forward. So, I gladly made a bunch of friends from that time because it really touched me when I heard stories about women from different backgrounds being suppressed. So, for me it was very inspiring to hear these stories, to inspire them to come and hear me sing the blues, to make them feel great.
Being a woman, the challenges I faced from my early days were… maybe that I’m pretty and charming? And men take that very lightly, you know?! They think if you sing and you’re pretty and you dress up well, you should be available to spend time with important people. But in my career, I never believed in pleasing anyone to be in a particular show..
I just concentrate on my music. I don’t know why I have to be nice to someone, or spend more time with someone, just because they helped in getting us the gig. These were the difficulties I faced in those days, when I was younger. Now, of course, I’m older, and more upfront and forward!
With too few sisters to turn to for solace, sympathy or a voice of understanding, did you feel lonely when you started out?
Yes, as a woman I do feel very lonely in this work, especially now that I’m 42. In an environment you love to be in and to create music in, with like-minded people, sometimes I feel it’s difficult to get through to the men, you know? But it’s so easy to speak to another woman, and to explain to her how you would like the song to be. With men, they won’t even listen to the end of a brand-new song I wrote.
So, yes, I was missing that companionship of a woman who I could just talk to. Because I’m in a band where I’m the only woman – all the others are men. So wherever we go, there will always be a bunch of fellows who are friends of the band, so it’s mostly men, men, men, and sometimes I feel like I need a female that I can talk to and relate to. So, I made lots of friends wherever I went, and my relationships with the people that I met continue to this day, and I’m very grateful for that.
Dismissive portrayals and uninformed scrutiny in the media is one thing but negative and often toxic comments on social media are another, especially when their target is a successful woman unafraid to speak her mind. How much did this affect you while going about your life as a recording and touring artist?
I’m a person who always says what I feel – of course not in a hurtful way, but you will get the message. But I realise that in this day and age, it’s not cool to be like that because you get scrutinised. So, I’ve learnt from that, and I’ve learnt to keep my mouth shut when I have to, but it’s not nice how the scene is for a working female artist.
I have been working very hard since I was in my early 20s, and I’ve reached this level now when social media can scrutinise you and people don’t respect you and your work. I’m not somebody who just made a reel and became famous, but right now it’s like a popularity contest – that’s all it’s about. But I still have true followers and that keeps inspiring me to do more stories, to write more songs.
Growing up, what music did you listen to, and did you always want to be a singer, and in particular, a blues singer?
I wanted to be a traffic policewoman! Like the choirmaster, I wanted to command! We grew up spending our evenings in the church, with the choirmaster teaching us some songs, and we would all sing in a group as children. And I was always the loudest of them all – I was kicked out of the choir because I was so loud it wasn’t blending!
In the 1990s, when I was in school, the kind of music I was listening to was Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey (belts out a bit of Whitney). Every day they would come on TV around the same time, at 4pm. I would rush back home from school to write some rap parts of TLC (an American girl group popular in the 1990s), and in a week’s time I did the whole rap song!
So, I grew up listening to all these people – but then, who inspired Whitney? Who inspired Mariah? So, I dug deeper to find out why Mariah sings like that, then I listened to who inspired her. That’s when I listened to the blues and realised, ‘Oh, they all came from Aretha (Franklin), they came from Ella (Fitzgerald).’
Like I said, my passion and love for music is something else. I sing because it gives me comfort. And you will always notice that when I sing, I close my eyes, because it’s very soothing, it’s therapeutic for me. I never really knew that I was going to do this but I think God has been so good to me, and he blessed me so well, that I just had to sing, and I make my living from that.
Like I told you, making money was never the first priority for me; for me making music comes first. So, I tried for that, I looked for people who I can create music with. And I’m still searching for musicians who I feel can be my friends, and with whom I can play music.
And for me, to play music you can’t just choose a big name or a star; you first have to be friends with someone, have to be almost on the same spiritual level as them.
People only see the glamour and adulation of a performer’s life, not the sweat and setbacks that are part of that life. What, if any, advice would you give to someone who is motivated by what you have achieved, and who wants to embrace the studio and the concert stage?
There are lots of people who come to me and say they want to be a musician, and I tell them, ‘First of all, you have to lead a very disciplined life.’If you’re playing in a band, there are so many heads you play with, so you have to accommodate everybody and you have to be very punctual. And the tours, the early flights, all the times you miss your sleep – all of that takes a toll on your health.
So, you want to be like me but you want to have this energy, so you have to eat well. And I always carry my own food.
What have the blues given you?
I’ll be totally honest with you. The blues have given me a lot of hardship. Because the blues is already very sad. It’s about hard times, and to earn your bread and butter singing songs that are of hardship, it takes a toll on your mind. Especially when you do it with your heart and your soul.
So, after the pandemic, I tried to listen to a lot of other genres. Also, I’ve started focussing on my traditional folk music, because I kind of feel like I’ve been, you know, watered again. And it gives me joy. Because the blues was just doing me harm; I was not able to control myself. Sometimes when the song is too sad, I would cry. For the people it’s a show, but for me it’s pain.
But I have not forgotten the blues because my life in Shillong is very difficult, and I face a lot of problems there. So, I do relate with all of that but I don’t want that to take over my life. So, I listen to punk, I listen to jazz, I listen to all kinds of music now, and I’m open to doing everything because God has given me this voice, and there are no boundaries to what I can do with it. What’s going to make me happy is to just feel what music you play for me.
What did it mean to you to open the 2024 Mahindra Blues Festival? Did it make you feel that the journey you’ve been on since the late 1990s – all the challenges you faced, and the highs and lows you experienced – has been worthwhile?
I felt really happy and honoured to have been asked to open, and in all these years of touring and playing shows all over the country, this edition of this particular festival showed the progress being made in the field of music for women.
I was in tears when I saw that people had packed The Soulstrat Saloon (Mumbai) by 5:30pm; it just touched my heart. In that moment I felt the most love, felt all the endless hours travelling and rehearsing so I could improve my craft, my art.
I mean, I couldn’t ever have imagined that I would have the opportunity to be part of such a special festival, to have brought together Maya Mawlong, my bassist and also backing vocalist, and Nicole Wahlang, on backing vocals, as the core group of my set-up. From Mizoram we had Chali bring a voice of pure soul, and finally, being joined by the amazing Kanchan Daniel. I played in my traditional attire and started the show with songs I wrote in my language, Khasi. These were very personal songs, and I felt it is moments like these that make it all worth it in the end.
Most memorable show
When I played at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. The Washington Post did a write-up on me and the journalist asked me, ‘What message would you like to give America?’ And I said, ‘I would like to give this message to the Khasi people living in Washington, that when you come for my gig, please wear a traditional outfit so that I will recognise that you are from my land.’ So, they came wearing their traditional outfits, and that was quite a thing for me – it was very emotional.