Singer Dhruv On His Viral Hit "Double Take" And His Childhood In Singapore
"If you really want to make something you're proud of, you have to give it your energy and time."
London-born singer dhruv is a rising name in the regional pop music scene, thanks to his viral hit, "double take" - and he grew up in Singapore.
His family moved here when he was two and he attended the United World College.
At 18, he moved to the United States to study statistics and data science at Yale University, Connecticut. That was when he started getting serious about his music.
In 2019, he released "double take", his debut single. Over the next two years, the song gained traction, eventually going viral as more people used it as a soundtrack for their TikTok videos.
The smooth R&B track about falling in love with a best friend went to No. 1 in the Philippines and Thailand, and was in the top five in the streaming charts in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore in 2021.
The TikTok videos featuring the song have clocked 285.6 million views, and on Spotify alone, the song has more than 212 million streams.
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Even before the song started charting in 2021, dhruv, whose full name is Dhruv Sharma, was confident enough to take a hiatus from his studies in 2020 to focus on his music full time.
In an interview over Zoom when he was in Singapore to visit his family, the 22-year-old singer says: "If you really want to make something you're proud of, you have to give it your energy and time. And that's what I felt at that point, that I needed to be a part of a musical community and be away from being a student as well, because it's a very different mindset, obviously."
In January, he released his debut EP rapunzel, which comprises eight songs, including double take, as well as previously released singles moonlight and vulnerable.
The EP title is taken from the lyrics of another song, grateful, which was inspired by his childhood memory of playing princess at his grandmother's house.
"When I think back to that time in my life, it's like the most uninhibited pure joy. That's like the truest essence of who I actually am. I think I'm, like, trying to get back to that state where I'm really living for myself."
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Growing up, he recalls, his Indian parents played a lot of Bollywood songs at home. His father, a businessman, sang a lot at family gatherings.
His first exposure to Western pop music was through compilation CDs bought from local music store That CD Shop.
But while he liked listening to songs by artistes such American soul duo Gnarls Barkley and British soul singer Amy Winehouse, he also loved coming up with his own songs and melodies.
There was a piano in his home, but he says it was his twin sister who was more serious about learning to play it.
"When I was 13 or 14, I had this song, "Crossroads", that I recorded on Photo Booth (a video and photo recording app) and my sister was playing the guitar. That was the first song I remember showing people and being really proud of."
He also used audio recording app Voice Memos extensively and says he has amassed "thousands" of recordings of melodies and songs.
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He uploaded some of the amateur recordings onto music streaming site SoundCloud when he was still in Singapore, but it was only when he was in the US that he was introduced to producers and started recording his songs professionally in studios.
He almost did not want to release "double take" because he felt "super self-conscious" about the song and thought that few people would hear it because he was such a new artiste.
"So, to come around to that moment when it was doing well and then people whom I hadn't spoken to in years messaging me about it, it was a really dizzying time.
"But it's also kind of scary because when you dream about something and your life starts to feel like that, you feel kind of disoriented. It was a mix of amazing feelings and being, like, 'Oh my god, what is happening right now? This is crazy.'"
Currently signed to major American label RCA Records, dhruv is planning a series of live shows and is working on a full-length debut album.
He says: "I actually started a song called "Home" while I was here, which is about coming back to a place that kind of moved on, and this place changes quite quickly."
EP rapunzel by dhruv is available on Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming services.
This article originally appeared in The Straits Times