Gayathri Krishnan’s groovy classical-meets-R&B music will make you turn the volume up

Back in eighth grade, when most kids’ notebooks were filled with sneaky games of Flames and tic-tac-toe, Gayathri Krishnan scribbled a dream for the future. “I want to go to Berklee College of Music,” her prophecy read. In her senior year of high school, she got a tattoo of a guitar to manifest this vision. Three years later, that’s exactly what she did.

Today, that dream has whizzed well past Berklee. Released in 2020, the South Asian singer-songwriter’s first EP, Create to Express, amassed six million streams—a rare feat for an independent artist. Not one to be relegated to one-hit wonder status, the 25-year-old has been putting in the work: her latest single and TikTok earworm, ‘Made It’, is proof. Like many R&B tunes, the track begins with a groovy, sensual lilt, reeling you in with familiar blues notes. But just as you settle in, Krishnan segues into a mesmerising sequence of Carnatic swarams (notes) that turn your curiosity about her into admiration.