Preeti Kaur: Staying relevant while making the music she loves

Preeti Kaur, 42, is a Nepali pop singer. In the 2000s, she was well-known for her vocals. She started her career in 2004 and has ever since been a part of the Nepali music industry. To date, she has released more than a dozen songs and albums.

Her interest in music started when she was a child and she came across the songs of Mariah Carey, an American singer and songwriter. “I had her poster, but I realized who she was only after hearing her songs on MTV, a music channel that was hugely popular back in the 90s and 2000s,” she says. Kaur listened to her songs on repeat and tried to imitate the singer’s vocals whenever she could. 

Listening to Mariah Carey made her want to learn Western classical music, but there were no courses offered at the time. So she eventually turned to Eastern classical music. Her professional career began after winning the Shikhar Beat Contest. That, she says, was the starting point of her career. 

She was approached for numerous projects and had the opportunity to perform on stage with a variety of bands, including Nepsiders, Nirnaya, 1974 AD, and Prasna. ‘Dherai Palta’ was the first song she released. It was recorded in one take. She says this song established her position in the Nepali music industry. 

Despite the love and attention she was receiving, she claims she was unsatisfied. Even though she was an established artist at the time, she wanted new experiences. In 2010, she moved to Mumbai in India in search of more opportunities. In three years, she did land up as a background vocalist for the movie ‘Besharam’. But she found it quite challenging to build her reputation from scratch so she decided to return. 

Upon her return to Nepal, she decided to take some time off. Nevertheless, she continued teaching music classes while continuing her musical studies. In response to a request from a friend, in 2015 she uploaded her song ‘Bellydancer’ on YouTube, a month before the devastating Nepal earthquakes. She then released ‘Timrai Lagi’ in 2017 and its studio version in 2021. Since then, she has been working nonstop to bring out new tunes.

Kaur doesn’t focus on a specific genre.  Instead, she experiments a lot. “Everything happens randomly,” she says. She and her band composed songs and melodies for the Shikhar Beat Contest audition in just around 15 minutes. Likewise, influenced by Etta James, an American singer,  ‘Timrai Lagi’ is one of her personal favorites. She views music as an original creation without rigid limitations. “There are no rules. You can take a lot of creative liberties,” says Kaur.

A few months back, she released a new song that differs significantly from her previous releases. It’s a Teej song called ‘Dhalki Dhalki’. She likes her new work and says that working on it was both tough and thrilling. She claims her husband, Kamal Raj Bhatta, inspired her to come up with the song. Kaur credits him for the unwavering motivation he provides at every step of her life. He is a constant cheerleader, she says. 

“Things were a lot easier when I started. Now, an artist’s popularity is influenced by digital trends and it’s just hard to keep up,” she says. She also took a 10-year break from social media, which, in hindsight, she can see has negatively impacted her career. “It’s a bit difficult to catch up with the trends,” says Kaur. Nevertheless, she considers the challenge her opportunity for resurrection in the music world. She is adamant to do what it takes to make a comeback of sorts and become a household name. 

She is currently working on recreating her old song ‘Parewa ko Jodi’, combining it with her own Punjabi folk song. Realizing her tunes must keep up with the changing times, she is trying to weave elements the audience loves into her music.

But what she really wants to do is create music that captures the cultural diversity of Nepal. For now, she’s focused on relaunching herself with the band ‘Pretty & The Boyz’.