Vasuki Vaibhav says writing the songs for Ninna Sanihake for different genres of music was a challenge

His stint on a Kannada reality show may have made Vasuki Vaibhav a household name, but much before that itself he had begun enthralling Kannada cinema and music lovers with his work on films like Rama Rama Re,

Sarkari Hiriya Prathamika Shaale

, Kasaragode, Koduge:

Ramana Rai

, Law and French Biriyani, among others. In the past few months, Vasuki’s latest work has been making its presence felt on music charts. Only this time, it is for his talent as a lyricist. Vasuki, as it turns out, has written eight songs for Suraj Gowda’s debut directorial

Ninna Sanihake

, which have been set to tune by Raghu Dixit.

Talking about his association with Raghu, Vasuki shares, "I have written songs for

Raghu

earlier too. He would encourage me to write even if my songs didn’t make it to the final cut. I think I have written close to 20 songs for him already. Writing for him is a treat, as Raghu composes in ways that do total justice to Kannada as a language. Often, music composers and lyricists fit words from other languages to stick to a certain composition, instead of working it around to allow for Kannada words only. Raghu's music is made for Kannada. The tunes dictate the lyrics to me."

As for the songs in Ninna Sanihake, Vasuki explains, "This film is special because he has given me the whole album to write, which is not common these days. At the most you get to write one song on an album to accommodate other known lyricists too. Sometimes, it is a collaboration of two people on one song. This album was a good challenge to write, as it involved multiple genres of music; there is a semi classical song, as well as a rap number. For instance, the rap song not only needed to convey anger, which is not easy if you keep it strictly to Kannada, but also had to have a poetic tinge and no unwanted use of colloquial words. All eight songs on this album are personal favourites.”

Elaborating on his process of writing the songs, Vasuki adds, "Raghu used to send me the tune and Suraj would explain the situation in detail. The placements of the songs in the film are such that they take the narrative forward. So, I can say that I have worked like a screenplay lyricist for the film."