12,000 views in three days is quite a remarkable achievement for a Konkani
single released on YouTube. The song is ‘Baby’, sung by Ester Noronha and Noel
Sean; they have also sung and released a Telugu version of the song. An
established Konkani actor, this is Ester’s second single on YouTube after her
Konkani cover of Luis Fonsi’s ‘Despacito’, which became the first Konkani song
to hit the one million views mark in less than three months of its online
release. “After ‘Despacito’, we wanted to do another release together but Noel
and I were busy with our own projects, the shoot of ‘Kantaar’, our engagement
and wedding. There were so many things in the way, personally and
professionally that we didn’t have enough time to work on it,” says Ester, who
married the composer, lyricist and rapper in January.
He is also a singer for a musical group
that travels internationally for shows, led by M M Keeravani, the music
director of Bahubali.
The video has been directed by Noel and produced by Janet
Noronha, Ester’s mother. The song has been written by Ester and the rap was by
Noel. “Last Easter, ‘Despacito’ was created so we decided to do something for
this Easter too. We didn’t know what to call the song; we decided to name it
‘Baby’ because this is our first project after our wedding. When people are in
love, we don’t call each other by name, we use words like ‘baby’; our song
carries the same warmth.
The Konkani lyrics are by me and Telugu lyrics are by Noel. Both
the songs were recorded and shot together as we made it in our mother tongue.
Since Telugu has a larger and aware audience who are very active on social
media, the viewership has gone really high,” says Ester. The Telugu version was
released on May 9, 2019.
Experimenting with YouTube, Ester feels that this platform is
the best option to interact with the audience within a shorter span of time.
“With this song, it is easier for the audience to access my work; they don’t
have to wait for a film. I consider YouTube as a good channel to reach out to
the audience and it doesn’t have to be an audio CD of ten songs for you to put
the song out there. One song is good enough for people to enjoy by the time you
are ready with the next song. Today, the world is moving fast and it doesn’t
have the patience. The length of films is decreasing and cars don’t even come
with a music system. This whole era of listening to CDs and cassettes and
collecting them is now evolving and is becoming more of a YouTube and pendrive
situation and I think it’s time for us as musicians to move on and mould
according to the current situation,” explains Ester.
Earlier in the year, Ester acted in the film, ‘Kantaar’ directed
Nilesh Malkar and produced by Janet Noronha, which was released only in Goa.
The film is still being screened in various theatres across Goa and will be
screened in Canada in July. “We had screenings at Ravindra Bhavan Margao, ESG,
Panjim and in Vasco. We also received inquiries from UK and Abu Dhabi, by
people who loved the film in Goa.
The
film is a musical with a philosophy of life. It is Angelica’s life, where she
has reached that point where she wants to give up until she meets Jordan
Marcus, played by Jackie Shroff, who is from an older generation. Their journey
from there is musical and we can all relate to it since it was shot in Goa and
has so many aspects of life,” says Ester, about the musical that has lyrics by
Tomazinho Cardozo and music by Aditya Bharve.
