2021 Mumbai, India
I am Kiss Nuka, a music producer, singer-songwriter, composer from Mumbai, India. I am on a path of self-discovery and creation with a purpose..human-nature harmony. I have come to believe that for the welfare of this planet and its beings, our race of humans must connect with the feminine energies within ourselves, irrespective of gender.
In Dakini, my upcoming release, I celebrate my femininity and re-learn the meaning of self-love.
August 2015, New York, USA
I was taking a music production course in the summer of 2015, living on the infamous St Marks Street in the Lower East Village. I received the book 'Women Who Run With The Wolves' a book written by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., a psychoanalyst, poet and cantadora (keeper of old stories). This was a gift from another woman, with the following writing inscribed -->
The cantadora spoke about the Wild Woman Archetype. And how she is known in different cultures. In Spanish she was Río Abajo Río, the river beneath the river, or La Loba..the wolf woman. In Hungarian Ö, Erdöben, She of the Woods, and Rozsomák, The Wolverine. I was drawn to what she was called in Tibet..Dakini, the dancing force which produces clear-seeing within women.
But I never completed the book.
2021, Mumbai , india
I am growing into a gentle, yet confident way of being, the fire within my belly calm until it needs to be ignited. I start reading again, voraciously, a habit I lost to technology and the all consuming beast that is social media. And I find again..Women Who Run With The Wolves.
From the book :
’Wildlife and the Wild Woman are both endangered species.
It is not by accident that the pristine wildness of our planet disappears as our understanding of our own inner wild nature fades. It is not so difficult to comprehend why old forests and old women are viewed as not so important resources.’
Having made this undeniable connection between the feminine and nature, a lot of my song and visual ideas have started to center around the feminine. I started working on a track, called it Dakini, and all the pieces started coming together.
Pitch bending the bass into a movement that flows and ebbs like the ocean does with the moon, I have combined my love for Drum and Bass with beautiful guitars by my younger brother Shikhar Yuvraj Manchanda aka Rākhis. Recording his guitars running through the Axe-Fx II, I sent the audio signal through Guitar Rig for some epic reverberation.
Dakini is the first of its kind in this genre from me, and I am thrilled to share it with you!
VISUAL IMAGINATIONS
Styled long distance by the sublime Tania Fadte, a woman I believe embodies the wild woman archetype, we dug deep into my mother’s and my own closet to create a look that would be mindful of resources and waste.
The artwork for Dakini has been created by Kshitija Gurav, an artist I discovered through the #KissNukaArtistSpotlight, something I started at the beginning of 2021 through which I share the work of all kinds of creative artists on my Instagram page every week, with the hope of building a community that supports one another.
Graded by Vyshak Shiva at Nube Studios, choreographed by my longtime dance partner Trishita Sengupta, and assisted by my new friend and guide in Mulshi, Dhondhi Ba, this video is a labor of love.
I threw myself into this music video, conceptualising, directing, and editing it. I built the story around the mesmerising martial art of Capoeira, and the movement and discipline of my teacher Sucuri Sunil, who I have cast as the main protagonist in the video.
In the words of Sucuri, “Capoeira is dance, a fight, it is culture and creativity. It is an art of transformation, born from the struggle for liberation, empowerment and self-determination.” To me, this resonates with how I feel about the feminine, and endorses the spirit of the dakinis.
The video has been shot in Mulshi, Maharashtra by my dear friend and a fine cinematographer Sachin Pillai, with additional shots by my assistant and upcoming filmmaker Apurva Jadhav.