If you follow Nepali content on TikTok, you might have heard songs by Arjun Sapkota. The 24-year-old is one of the well-known musicians of the Nepali music industry. As the youngest music composer of Nepal, almost all his songs are inspired by Nepali folk music. Sapkota says he always wanted to become a singer and he had a keen interest in folk music. For the past decade, he has been trying to make this genre of music popular among Nepali youths. Brought up in Nawalparasi, Sapkota grew up listening to folk music. “It was a huge part of my childhood,” he says. “Every one of us would be humming a song while doing chores or during our free time. It kept our house lively,” he adds. It helped that his family members loved folk music. They would hum a tune while doing household chores. His uncle, Yagya Sapkota, is one of the prominent folk singers of Nepal. His father, despite not being a singer by profession, had a good knowledge of folk music too. “He sang when he could, and taught me a lot about folk music,” he says. Sapkota can’t pinpoint exactly when he became interested in folk music but says it was at a young age.  “In school, we were frequently asked what we wanted to be when we grew up and my answer never changed. I knew I wanted to become a singer,” he says. And he never shied away from performing in public. “From singing bhajans with community members to performing at school programs, I never missed any opportunity,” he adds. He often spent days teaching himself about folk music through YouTube, and tried to incorporate those learnings each time he performed.

However, his professional journey as a singer started in 2013, when he recorded a song called ‘Ratlai Sathi Jun Chha’, written and composed by his uncle. Although Sapkota was used to singing with a microphone, he says recording at a studio was a completely different experience for him. “I wasn’t scared since singing was my passion. But the experience was quite overwhelming at first,” he says.

The response he got for his first song was unexpected. “I didn’t know I would be getting so much positive feedback,” he says. It fueled his drive to become a songwriter and composer. “My work was appreciated and that made me want to work harder and become better,” he says. Six years later, in 2019, he released his first composition called ‘Banki Chari’, which he performed himself. “Now, I write, compose, and sing my songs,” he says. Sapkota says he likes to experiment with his music. “Although folk music is the primary genre I work with, I like to compose the same music using different instruments that’s not normally used in folk music,” he says. Sometimes, his music has a touch of western tunes too. It’s not that Sapkota doesn’t like working on other genres. Time and again, he says, he tries and learns to sing other songs. “I enjoy singing as a whole, and there aren’t any forms of music that I dislike,” he adds, “But I will not stop working on folk music,” he says, and there is a reason for that. It’s only recently that folk music is gaining its popularity among youths. Sapkota wants to work on reviving the youth’s interest in folk music so that the genre will get the platform it deserves among Nepalis and the music industry. Though Sapkota doesn’t think folk music will fade away since it’s got its roots in our culture and tradition, he believes there is definitely a need to give it more attention. “If you think about it, every Nepali festival has some kind of folk music dedicated to it. There will always be people listening to that music and singing those songs,” he says, adding folk music has a lot of scope for growth in Nepal and that he hopes to see more youths interested in the genre so that it gets the platform it deserves. Sapkota confesses he isn’t much of a planner and, for the future, he intends to just go with the flow and do what he is doing. But he will work on his skills and try to become better, he says. “I consider myself lucky to be where I am today. I’ve gotten so much fame at a young age. I don’t want to take it for granted,” he says.