Sid sriram family photos

Chennai, India-born artist Sid Sriram doesn’t believe in separate identities, just one kaleidoscopic lived experience

A year after he was born in Chennai, India, Sid Sriram relocated with his family to the San Francisco Bay Area. Here, his mom taught him Carnatic music, a centuries old form from Southern India. While this was the genre that “raised” him, he was naturally exposed to R&B, soul, and rock while growing up in the U.S. Last year, he referenced all of these styles on his album ‘Sidharth’, creating a sound that is entirely his own and reconciling his multifarious cultural influences in the process. “It’s really helped me in getting rid of this idea of having separate identities,” he says. “There’s just one lived experience, one spectrum, and it’s kaleidoscopic.”

In line with his debut A COLORS SHOW performance of ‘The Heir’, we sat down with Sriram to find out more about how his work in the South Asian film industry has influenced the music he makes today, the profundity of self understanding, and why the best music transcends all barriers.