The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Teenager releases hip hop album

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 25, 2006
ePaper

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Teenager releases hip hop album

J. Malarvizhi

`Imagination,'a solo production

CHENNAI: `Hip hop and a bit of pop' is how Aldrin describes his maiden album, released when he is all of 15 years. The album, titled `Imagination', is the solo production of this Standard X student of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Avadi.

While he wants to study medicine, Aldrin Dominic Alexander also dreams of becoming a rap star like his favourite singer Eminem.

When his parents gave him a keyboard on his sixth birthday, they were surprised to hear him pick out tunes on the instrument with no training.

Aldrin remembers his teacher taking the class out to the garden when he was 10 years old and asking them to write a paragraph about what they saw.

"I started getting rhyming words and produced a poem instead," he recalls. With encouragement from parents and teachers, he began writing lyrics for his own tunes.

He took a grade in keyboard from the Trinity College of Music, London.

The idea of a solo album took shape two years ago. The lyrics of `Imagination' echo adolescence, swinging between the playful imagination of a child and the attempt to grapple with adult concerns.

Dreams of flying in the open sky, the confusion of a man who travelled into the present from the past, and a crazy incident in the life of a schoolboy are presented along with a lamentation for the victims of the tsunami, the difficulty of dealing with advice from opinionated people, and his advice to the rest of the world.

The album was released in Chennai recently. More information is available at www.aldrinalex.com.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu