Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Rashmi. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Rashmi, thanks for joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

My parents were very supportive.

For immigrant parents, a child in the arts can present a dilemma as they want nothing more than security and ease for their children. I sang in choir and performed regularly starting in middle school and they came to the shows and saw how this was an area in which I really came to life and the response other parents and students had to me. My choir director was a big champion of mine and, coming from culture where teachers are very respected, my parents really took this in. I played in bands, acted in plays, sang with my glee club and performed all over town from a very young age. I entered and won a country music contest and again, they were surprised and delighted.

Every thing I was doing was discovery for them. They were educated in a very different system and all these activities in school and outside of it was novel to them. So they were on the ride with me! Sure there were times when we had to discuss things, for example, on a choir retreat before schools started, students were going to be away overnight together. My parents were surprised that both boys and girls would be gone together. But growing up in Texas, where several parents had conservative values whether religious or southern, also had qualms. This was all addressed by the administrators. Parents escorted us on retreats and contests. Girls stayed in rooms with other girls and chaperones. The concerns for ALL the parents of various backgrounds were addressed.

Later, after college, I did a summer stock in Colorado and my parents came to see that. I was the lead in the musical, Beehive, and the artistic director, director, and administrators all greeted my parents effusively. My parents were very moved by that. Even if they had thought that, okay, school is over, time to get real, Colorado really helped them see that I had made an impact and that this is what I was meant to do. When we returned to Dallas, my Dad showed me an ad for a headshot photographer and said, this is your next step. I’ll never forget that. A year later, I moved to New York City.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas to immigrant parents from India. I was blessed in that they were both very much into music, film, poetry, and hosted and attended gatherings where friends would play music, recite poetry, or watch Hindi films together. So I grew up with the arts being a necessary and vital part of my life.

I was in my middle school choir and theatre groups, high school glee club, and annual musicals. I was in a band outside of school and we played all over Dallas and Austin and just had a great time. In school I sang Western classical, choral music, standards, musical theatre, and pop, jazz and rock. There was a great arts program in high school and it wasn’t until many years later living and performing in NYC, I realized how rich and diverse my education had been in music.

At my parents’ salon gatherings I was encouraged to sing Hindi songs and so I learned a lot of those songs. My band played Hindi songs and we were quite the novelty as American born kids that sang Hindi and American pop songs. We had a blast!

In New York City, I was the lead singer in a band called Color Crush, and performed in musicals and straight plays with highlights including The Public Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park, New York Fringe Fesitval’s Antigone in which I played Tiresias, Into the Woods in which I played the Baker’s wife. I also wrote my own songs and played guitar.

I lived in Los Angeles for a few years where I was invited to be a member of the Classical Theatre Lab where we performed classics on a regular basis. I did TV and film work including Ron Howard’s Angels and Demons, and shows on ABC, NBC, independent film and several national commercials. I co-founded a theatre company with some fellow actors and we had a successful run of plays including a West Coast premiere of Painted Alice and a production of The Madwoman of Chaillot.

I started writing screenplays along the way because I wanted to create parts for myself that reflected my capacitues and realized my potentials.

My artistic life is by no means linear. I have followed my heart and created the next step for the direction I want to go in. I’m doing things I never thought I’d do. I love that I get to create stories and songs that connect people to each other across cultures, age, generations, and divides. My life has taken me from Texas to NYC, to India, to Paris, to Los Angeles, and what I’ve learned and strongly believe is that we are more alike than we are different and we want the same thing – to feel love, connection, joy, and belonging.

My songs and stories reflect this diversity of experience and the transcendence of boundaries whether geographical or genre or medium. When you listen to the songs, you’ll hear a trippy Indian vocal inflection on an otherwise pop song (Into the Groove cover), heartfelt lyrics about immigrant distance and longing (Aerogram) to a rhythmic bass line, or horns punctuating the indomitable spirit of joy (Magic).

I’m especially tuned into in-betweeness, and the perspective inhabiting different worlds gives you. I feel like I’m not defined by any one and yet I encompass both/all. I’d like to think this gives my humanity an expansiveness and empathy that connects me to people everywhere, which is key in all I create and align with.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

A few years ago, things weren’t going ‘my way’ in my artistic career in that opportunities weren’t coming as fast as I wanted them to, I felt like I was just making lateral movement, and progress felt stagnant. In a fit of frustration of ‘who needs this’, I applied to graduate school in Education. I had been teaching English and Hindi off and on between gigs and roles and had steadily built up a resume. Perhaps because I wasn’t so emotionally invested, I applied to two schools and got accepted to both! I was shocked and delighted. I remember actually enjoying preparing for the GRE, revisiting mathematics and reminding myself of properties and proofs. It was fun and felt like ‘why was I so scared of this in high school?’ The test, the application, all turned out to be a reflective process and, because I didn’t care about the outcome, I had a good time.

I completed a Masterns program the next year and lived in the Boston area in a grad dorm and met the most amazing people. I REALLY loved taking class and learning things so far, it seemed, from the life I had been living. Microeconomics, Policy, Non-profit Finance. I absolutely loved it and made some wonderful friends who are a very dear and essential part of my life now.

THEN, I graduated during COVID when the world was in chaos, and it catalyzed me through an existentialist crisis in which I realized that my heart was still in my art! So I went back to it! And soon enough I received a Queens Council on the Arts Grant to create new works, a Puffin Foundation Grant and wrote and created and performed new works. I was back in my game.

What a rollercoaster! Welcome to my life:)

It may seem odd and totally abrupt about how I took this ‘detour’ but what I learned from it was that the reason my grad experience worked out so beautifully was that I had no expectations of it, stepped into a place of wonder and curiosity when applying, and even during school. I didn’t feel the same stress to get certain grades. I worked hard and conferred with professors and TAs but it all felt fun and light and like I was on an adventure.

This detachment to process, I believe, was the key learning for me that I brought back to my artistic process. I had gotten too attached to what it ‘should’ look like, where I ‘should’ be and the joy had left it. Grad school reminded me of my soul’s calling and reset my approach back to gratitude, joy, and wonder. Thank you, Universe!

I’ve had to do it again recently b/c pre-pandemic I played shows, worked in TV and film and had an email list which provided me with a great local audience. Who had time for social media? I was busy.

Now, I realize with the new album I’m releasing, how important socials have become and creating an online and global presence is important and vital to an artist’s career. I have overcome HUGE resistance and am engaging on social media regularly. It’s had its challenges but I’m finding ways to enjoy it and bring some of that curiosity and wonder to it. Even though I’ve been performing for a while, I am new again to something else. Back on a rollercoaster!

Lesson: We are always starting over somewhere. Do it with joy, wonder, and love!

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Provide opportunity, venues, and development. NYC was able to offer some support during the pandemic, but many artists left the city and it became very clear that they are vital part of NYC’s identity.

Create venues funded by local, state, and federal government that provide pay for artists and their work. Make libraries venues of artistic presentation. Art organizations that receive funding from the government MUST pay their artists.

Provide artists with health care the same as federal employees

Corporations that receive tax breaks must provide an artistic outlet and hire and pay artists on a regular basis as part of programming available to the public.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.EverythingRashmi.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/EverythingRashmi
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/EverythingRashmi
• Other: My lastest single, Blame Eve, released during Women’s month: https://rashmi.hearnow.com/ My Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1vpDgiVdh9jYEh11TVOQKc My next single, Hold On, about faith and resilience, comes out on April 5th. My brand new Tiktok:) www.tiktok.com/everythingrashmi Thank you! Rashmi

Image Credits
All photos by Leonardo Mascaro Except FIRST LOOK image and QUEENS OF QUEENS poster image by Jebbel Arce Single/Album Artwork by Matthew Harris