Nucleya

Udyan Sagar, better known by his stage name Nucleya, is an Indian electronic music producer.^[1] His unique usage of Indian street sounds has made him a countrywide phenomenon, and he’s managed to bridge the gap between indie and mainstream in a way that few artists have. Nucleya’s kitsch, bass-heavy sound has been lapped up by the masses and he continues to release new music, stretching the limits of his genre.^[2]

Udyan’s rise to the top was preceded by decades of struggle, and before he became Nucleya, he was well recognised for having founded Bandish Projekt with fellow musician Mayur Narvekar, and then-manager Mehirr Nath Chopra.^[3] Now as Nucleya, he has countless milestones under his belt, along with a some much-loved albums and the dedicated fan-base to sell-out a stadium.^[4]

Early life

Udyan Sagar was born in Agra, Uttar Pradesh on the 7 December 1979. When he was three years old, the entire family moved to Ahmedabad, Gujarat, and that’s where Udyan spent most of his adolescence. His father was deeply fond of music and their household would have some tunes playing in the background all day.^[5] Udyan’s mother used to dress him up in girl’s clothing, and his grandfather used to jokingly predict that Udyan would turn out to be a dancer.^[6]

Udyan was never into studies and liked to spend hours just playing video games. Eventually his friends would come over and they’d make music together and experiment. In his early days, he used work on self-made controllers and audio mixers. In 11th std, his father bought him a computer, and he also met Mayur Narvekar, who became his best friend and was a major influence to his musical evolution. Udyan also used to hang around NID college a lot, because his now-wife was studying there. They eventually moved in together during their college days to an apartment nearby.^[7]

Career

From 1997 to the early 2000s, Udyan was obsessed with making tracks and having his friends listen to them to get feedback.^[8] Around this time there was no nightlife, or in fact much to do in the day either, in Ahmedabad, and it gave the artists plenty of time to work on their music. Mehirr Nath Chopra (Ex-Manager for Bandish Projekt) was doing a party in Ahmedabad and happened to book Udyan and Mayur Narvekar^[9] as an opening act, and then saw the potential in them. This was the start of something big and the basement of Mehirr’s house – The Bhoiru^[10] – became the hub for everyone to meet up at. In the mid 90’s they started up as “Private Sochalay”^[11] - did a few gigs and released an album of bootleg mixes, under the genre “local Ahmedabad dance music.” They played on the term Sochalay - which means toilet in Hindi - and did a few funny photo-shoots and made some taglines from that. They knew it wasn’t a long-term name however and eventually came up with Bandish Projekt in 1998.^[12]

After building a name in Ahmedabad doing farm parties with hundreds of college kids in attendance, Bandish Projekt started doing gigs in Mumbai and Delhi and were even invited to play in London.^[13] After their gigs started picking up, Mehirr received a job offer from Dubai, which he accepted, and eventually Udyan and Mayur also shifted base there. This wasn’t a very constructive move for their careers and they stayed there for about two years, trying to make it work. Up till now the duo had a deep connect in terms of music and were joined at the hip, but this is when the friendship started going sour. In 2007, Udyan stepped out of Bandish Projekt^[14] after working with Mayur for about 12 years, and post the split the two musicians didn’t interact for nearly a decade.^[15]

What followed was three years of intense struggle for Udyan to rebuild himself as Nucleya.^[16] He was already married and could barely make his rent, almost thinking of giving up and looking at other career options. During this time he was financially supported by his wife,^[17] so he could focus on making his music. Udyan had to start from scratch to find his own USP. He stepped back to look for inspiration and found it on the streets of India. the sound of every Indian.^[18] He took things that are very familiar to Indians; like the sound of a radio presenter, of street music, and of old horror movies and embedded them in his music. These organic, everyday, uniquely-Indian sounds became the trademark of Nucleya.

During this time, Udyan had a son, and with only his wife sustaining the family, it was getting harder to survive. So he called up all possible contacts for help, and Only Much Louder (OML) was the only company that responded. Udyan was 34 when he was signed onto OML^[19] and it was a risk for them because, "his sound wasn’t Bollywood enough to be Bollywood and it wasn’t independent enough to be cool."^[20] In a management meeting set to discuss the future of their roster, artist manager Tej Brar^[21] decided to take on Nucleya for 6 months as a trial. He listened to all the music Udyan had ever written, and together they settled on 6 tracks to put out as an album – Koocha Monster.^[22] Things went pretty fast from that point.^[23] Conversion started happening at college shows, with people hearing his name for the first time to becoming actual fans. One of his defining tracks then was “Akkad Bakkad,” which was based around an old nursery rhyme. He added a “Nucleya bole fuck that shit” in the end, and it went truly viral.^[24]

His management was paying a lot of attention to the brand identity of Nucleya, and his wife Smriti (Pinksoda)^[25] contributed in terms of illustration for his albums and visuals. The visual image that comes forth is strong Indian flavours, which she treated in a geometrical way and people really connected with it.^[26] The festival scene is where Nucleya started holding big audiences and gaining more recognition than ever, and by the time he launched his Bass Rani album in September 2015, there was no looking back.^[27] Since Nucleya had always termed his music as street music, music from the gullys, then launching a street music album than in the gullys at a Ganpati festival in Mumbai, turned out to be one of the most high-profile gigs of his life.^[28] The next year, the next album, they went even bigger, and launched Raja Baja at the NSCI stadium in Mumbai in September 2016 and it was a sold out show. Having captured the hearts of the Indian market, Nucleya has even started doing a number of shows abroad at festivals like EDC Mexico and EDC Las Vegas, and even shows in Australia, Singapore, Dubai etc.^[29]

In 2018, he appeared as a judge on Amazon Prime Video web series, The Remix, along with Sunidhi Chauhan and Amit Trivedi' .^[30]

Personal life

Udyan Sagar was married on 17 April 2008 to his long-term girlfriend Smriti Choudhary, who he met during his college years in Ahmedabad. Smriti is a design student from NID who works under the brand name Pinksoda^[31] and has designed all the artwork associated with the Nucleya brand.^[32] The couple currently lives in Goa,^[33] with their son Guri, who was born on 5 August 2011. Udyan considers himself a father before anything else,^[34] and takes long leaves from touring to spend time with his family and to work on new music in peace.^[35] Guri is also part of the collective creativity of the family and has featured on some of Nucleya’s tracks as Guri Gangsta.^[36] Udyan's parents reside in Ahmedabad and he mostly visits them when he does shows in the city.

Awards and Nominations

Discography

Albums Produced

Singles/Collaborations

Film Soundtracks

References