• If Karun’s shift was meant to fulfil her as an artiste, she’s hit her mark dead-on.
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Good music is usually about human expressions that thrust us into the centre of complex emotions and ideas, at least in the traditional sense. It hardly thrives on the less realistic moments of life, but normally explores the true nature of existence. It’s the way audiences relate and float with the concepts and their contexts that bring out the wholeheartedness involved in the creation of music that can be considered good.
For a year or so, Karun has been involved in a couple of musical projects, both solely and jointly. Her influence still connects, and the streaming era has proved quite a blessing for her niche music, which hardly gets any airplay on local airwaves. Well, that’s not an excuse, now that we have a variety of options to pick from when disseminating music.
Her story goes something like this. She was one of the founders of the hip hop group Camp Mulla and went by the stage name Miss Karun, which is the short form of her name Karungari. Well, we all know the heights the group soared and the shift they caused in the music scene. However, for reasons best known to the group, they decided to pursue solo careers.
The artiste, now simply going by the name Karun, makes music that stands in the intersection of alt-R&B and helps us get lost in a feeling. She is the only one from the entire group who seems to be putting in noticeable work in the music industry. She is on the verge of creating defiant empowerment anthems like “Make Believe” and “Glow Up”, and continues to work with brilliant, idiosyncratic minds like Blinky Bill and the EA Wave.
Her style can be described as urban music, and it can be limited to a certain audience locally, but it’s surely her desire to transcend demographics. Her works are now impressionistic and emotionally charged, the result of a singer attempting to refine her sound. It’s obvious where she greatly derives her influences, but there’s nothing left to say when you make it your own.
To describe her direction and sound as inauthentic would really be disingenuous, but Karun is comfortable in exploring her creative space and establishing herself as artiste who can flourish on her own. We never truly got to experience her impact in her second musical life in the psychedelic-electronic music group Cosmic Homies, but her decision to finally do it solo was indeed the best yet.
For what it’s worth, if Karun’s shift was meant to fulfil her as an artiste and she loves the results of her efforts, then she’s hit her mark dead-on. Die-hard fans might quietly argue about which moment has seen the artiste exhibit her all, but it’s tough to ignore the fact that her current form takes it. The chances of her making international headway once again are pretty much realistic. She just has to keep doing what she loves and believe in it.