It’s not easy to chuck a corporate job and follow your dreams that have strong social content. It’s not easy either to turn your first song into YouTube hit.

Abhaey Singh, former corporate executive, now social entrepreneur has done both.  The latest ‘star’ of YouTube has more than 1.5 million hits on YouTube for his song ‘Talk It Out’ -a cerebral pop song on intelligent debating.

As he contemplates how to take his venture-Kauzala Entertainment forward, Radioandmusic.com caught up with him for his views on music, socialism, culture and stardom.

Excerpts:

How does it feel to be an overnight sensation? Were you prepared for it?

I am actually quite stable as a person, so when things go well I count my blessings, am deeply grateful, but pretty much continue with life and work as normal. When things are not great I accept that too and deal with it. So I am off course feeling good right now but life just carries on as normal and I am trying to focus on bringing out more and even work better now and scale this up.

Tell us about your background.

I was a corporate guy until recently and gave that world up to pursue part of what you see now. I was born in London, and grew up and worked between the UK, Spain, Singapore, Dubai and India. I always felt India was in my destiny and that is why I moved here. My influences have been far too varied but India is my life.

How did the song come about? Was it a flash of inspiration? Or a slow-burning idea whose time had come?

I felt that I needed to popularise the art of civilised, incisive debating beyond the Indian Debating Union’s core audience of committed debate goers. So I decided to combine alluring entertainment with a meaningful, heartfelt message about debate in a music video, and finally and most importantly show the best face of our great culture and style in the process.

The creative process started with the poetry, which came to me very quickly, it was mostly in one moment of inspiration.

Everything else flowed from there and I did some fine tuning here and there over time – but the main body of the work was completed in one quick sitting.

The video was ‘elitist’ or ‘intellectual’ as some may say. Was there a risk that the song might be too ‘way out’ unlike Kolaveri or Gangnam Style which are instantly comprehensible?

If it represents my country, it should be classy and considered. I’m actually glad people are saying that, rather than the usual stereotypes about us. Additionally, it is important to explain that I have always believed that entertainment and meaningful content or brain food can and should be completely complimentary. I do not understand the strain of thought which says it must be one or the other. ‘3 Idiots’ is a good example of content which can work commercially and relate to the masses, yet also be meaningful and carry a message.

If you look at the specificity of the response from the US to Congo, India to Tunisia – “OMG”, “props to you dude”, “awesome”, “blown away”, “dis is it maan” to “you have won my heart over” to comments from members of the Oxford Union and Toastmasters Canada- we are witnessing a very broad base of committed viewership for Talk It Out.

That means that this cannot be elitist, otherwise it would only be the people from the Oxford Union, Toastmasters who would watch and comment. Add to that the incredibly high like ratio for our video (over 95 per cent), and high retention rate (over 90 per cent average and in some countries well over 100 per cent) in this day and age of ‘fast food entertainment’, I believe that this video really does cut across all sorts of boundaries and strikes a chord with one and all.

You seem to be taking the path of a ‘socially conscious’ entrepreneur: How practical is it?

I am an idealist, and now that I have broken free from the corporate world, all of my major life perspectives and decisions can come from the heart again – like when I was a child. These feelings then need to be channeled through a logical, coherent system of action that can bring results. I am experienced and practical enough to know how to make such things work.

So if I wish to make a difference in any way, to solve problems, then I need to make such endeavors sustainable and scalable. Social enterprise is the answer for me. It is logical: it is still business – which is second nature to me – but it has a fundamental focus on social output, it is sustainable and it can compete and thrive in the greater context unlike, say, an NGO, which is reliant on handouts today, but possibly incapable tomorrow. Entertainment, for me, is one form of social enterprise.

How do you plan to leverage the hit & the fame? Any deal with a label/ YouTube/ Bollywood?

We are new to this game but we are here to stay. I have worked very hard to set up our new entertainment business (Kauzala Entertainment) and debating union (The Indian Debating Union).

I believe we have a fair chance at Kauzala of attaining the Holy Grail for Indian cinema - that is to get our content to succeed on a mass scale abroad.

This process has started with music, and you can expect to hear Richa Sharma and Neeti Mohan singing to my first two Indian compositions early next year (2013). One is a musical story about India, and the other is a Sufiana kalaam written by my father. Kauzala Music will also release songs featuring Asha Bhosale Ji and Sukhwinder Singh too - they are about 70 per cent ready and we just need to prepare things for launch in 2013. TV and film content will follow that, but this will take more time as we wish to produce content of the highest quality.

I would love to work with strong partners, with whom we could exchange value in a meaningful way. I am a ‘long-termist’, so my decisions will be focussed on those partnerships that serve both sides well over the long term.