#WeStandWithHer - Artists against Sexual Violence to launch new album

#WeStandWithHer - Artists against Sexual Violence to launch new album on 3rd November 2020, and raise awareness on womens safety!

BeBetter Collabs, Little Sounds and Bluesanova team up for this creative collaboration to make a lasting social impact

XxxxxOctober 2020: 

#WeStandWithHer - over 15 musical artists from varied genres across the country are coming together to launch a new album 'We Stand With Her' on the 3rd November 2020. The collective is showcasing their support for women everywhere facing sexual violence 

The album is a collection of fresh dissent-soaked compositions in various languages including Hindi, English, Bengali, Tamil, Punjabi and Marathi.

The objective of the album is to create awareness and take a stand on the ever-increasing crimes against women in India, especially rape and violence. We hope that this will sensitise men especially and help bring about change. 

The album will be accompanied by a music video for the first single of the album in Hindi - 'Jawab Chahiye'.

The album will be available on all major music platforms and video platforms such as YouTube, Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Apple Music and the like.

This project came about with a creative collaboration between BeBetter Collabs, Little Sounds and Bluesanova. While BeBetter Collabs and Little Sounds have been responsible for the creative vision and collaboration, the creative force behind the music has been Bluesanova, using his varied musical influences from HipHop, Electronic Music and Rock to create a powerful soundscape for the artists featured on this album.

India recorded an average of 87 rape cases daily in 2019 and overall 4,05,861 cases of crime against women during the year, a rise of over 7% from 2018, the latest government data released on September 29, 2020 said.

The cases of violence against women have been relentless and what has been realised is that this is across age groups and regions. It shows that the country is apathetic towards this and there needs to be a greater push for security of women in our country. 

This is something that cannot continue and there is no option but to take a stand. This is not who we are!

Deeti Mehta, Founder of BeBetter Collabs (A Social Impact Company) says, “It could have been me. I am tired of being desensitised to sexual violence. While doing a live music event for an orphanage, we were swamped with news and horror stories from the Hathras incident and from Rajasthan. As a team, it just did not feel right to go live and continue with the music evening. So while we did go ‘live’, we restricted ourselves to talking about the incident and sharing how much it hurt and horrified us. We decided to do something. We had some incredible artists coming in voluntarily to create all of these tracks in 6 six languages!”

She adds, "I believe in changing the world one step at a time by nudging people to make better and informed choices through a social lens by creating honest and organic campaigns and shareable stories. This is the beginning of my mission to eradicate evil from our society.”

Romel Dias, Creative Director and Founder of Little Sounds, adds, "Little Sounds has been all about performances in public spaces and we strongly believe that we have to do better to make our public spaces safer for all our citizens."

Bluesanova, Artist and Music Producer, says, "With crimes against women being perpetrated with shockingly regular frequency, as artists and common citizens we feel the need to come together and create a body of work that speaks about our collective stand on this issue."

The lyricists featured on the album are Khushi Agarwal (Hindi); Karishma (English) Cizzy / Logarhythm/ (Bengali); 

Artists include Aanchal Shrivastava (Mumbai/Gwalior), Tetseo Sisters (Kohima), Ananyaa Gaur (Mumbai/Delhi), Barkha Swaroop Saxena (Mumbai), Prashin Jagger (Ulwe), Cizzy (Kolkata), Mansi Multani (Mumbai/Delhi), Nibu Baby(Tamil Nadu), Logarhythm (Mumbai); and Karishma aka K o k u m (Mumbai).

Creative Photography is by Romel Dias, Team Photography by Prashin Jagger, Styling by Deeti Mehta and Makeup by Smita Chadda.

It all started when Deeti (BeBetter Collabs) pitched an idea to an orphanage based on an evening of live music. To execute this, she brought on Romel who is the founder at Little Sounds, the artist curator on the night.

Deeti led BeBetter Collabs was looking at the overall experience. On the eve of the event, there were incidents that shook the airwaves! As a team, it just did not feel right to go live and continue with the music evening. So while they did go ‘live’, the performers restricted themselves to talking about the rise in sexual crimes against women and sharing how much it hurt and horrified them.

That also did set off a few days of talking about this to friends and over these conversations, they realised a few things. One was that everyone was hurt and that there was anger and sadness across the board

Secondly, it did not seem right to sit around and not do anything. This was the seed to this entire project and soon Darshan aka Bluesanova came in and has been just phenomenal in creating the sound and music of the album

The word got out and soon they had some incredible artists coming in to create all of these tracks in 6 six languages! And they are all absolutely proud of this diversity

About Deeti Mehta, founder BeBetter Collabs

At BeBetter Collabs, Deeti encourages brands, communities, change-makers and leaders of the world to tell their stories and amplify their social impact. They create future-proof brands that matter across generations helping create aware, conscious and informed customers. They bring a bespoke curational aspect to the premise of branding by aligning them with social causes they have a synergy with. This helps brands go beyond corporate social responsibility and place a positive contribution to society at the core of everything they do. They work with communities to create awareness about their good work, help them build and support movements for an open, just, and habitable world.

Deeti has been passionate towards social causes and helping businesses understand that social impact isn’t bad for business - It’s the future of business. Over time she realised that she wanted to channelise her energies solely to make the world a better place through purpose-driven collaborations and hence established BeBetter Collabs in August 2020. It has been only a few months since they started on their journey but they have grown in every way– people, partnerships, office pets, and relentless energy. Prior to founding BeBetter Collabs, Deeti was part of the corporate world and worked in various sectors such as aviation, automation, luxury and fashion in Business Development for International markets. Deeti has a Masters degree in Fashion Media and Marketing from Conde Nast College of Fashion and Design and Bachelors degree in Jewellery designing and manufacturing from SNDT University -Mumbai

About Romel Dias, founder Little Sounds:

He runs a Creative Agency and has around 20 years of advertising experience. Over the years, conversations with his musician friends gave him an insight into the lack of spaces for indie artists in the country and Little Sounds was born out of creating more accessible spaces for artists and audiences in the city.

Little Sounds is now a small team that specialises in guerrilla styled live gig experience where it brings interesting sounds to audiences by challenging artists, be it tech (always zero) to the different spaces it curates- from yoga studios to quaint little bungalows in Lonavala! 

Over time he is growing a fanbase for artists by breaking barriers across ticketing, interaction and communities making the gig experience one that is easy for anyone to attend and experience! 

About Darshan Lodhaya, aka Bluesanova:

He is Bluesanova, a Music producer from Mumbai who makes Electronic and Hip Hop. Bluesanova is a staple on the independent hip hop scene in India, getting a global sound within the reach of underground hip hop artists. His diverse musical influences from Depeche Mode to Iron Maiden and the Prodigy to Joe Satriani makes his music a heady mix of genres, morphing shapes and sounds while sticking to his roots in Rock, Hip Hop and Synth Pop.