Kamakshi Khanna is a Mumbai-based singer/songwriter whose music draws inspiration from diverse influences ranging from RnB and Soul to Pop and Indie Folk. Her journey is one of conscious reinvention as she continues to embrace new styles and experiment with her sonic identity. An overthinker and daydreamer, most of Kamakshi’s ideas come from sudden spurts of introspection inspired by her lived experiences and her tendency to attach emotional depth to the mundane. For a lot of her listeners, her music embodies strength in vulnerability and her songs are earworms for solitude and reflection. Having established herself in the Indie music scene with numerous live performances across the country and collaborations, in 2020 Kamakshi released her first Hindi single, ‘Qareeb’, a song about a girl who grows and learns to love herself. Qareeb received widespread critical acclaim with over 1.8M views on YouTube and 1M+ audio streams across platforms. The song also won Rolling Stone India’s ‘Song Of The Year’ award in the second edition of ‘The Indies’.
In 2021, Kamakshi released her single Duur, a collaboration with composer and producer, Kabeer Kathpalia a.k.a OAFF. The song captures the struggles of a surface-level existence and personifies the feeling of detachment from the world both inside and out. The indie hit recently also got placed on the soundtrack of Madhuri Dixit’s much-awaited digital debut, ‘The Fame Game’ on Netflix India. Her other notable stints in the OTT/film world include ‘Chhan Chhan’, a soundtrack in collaboration with composer duo Parekh & Singh part of the Zee 5 series, Kaun Banega Shikharwati starring Naseerudin Shah, Soha Ali Khan & Lara Dutta and ‘Tere Jaisa’, a collaboration with Vaibhav Bundoo heard in the Netflix Series, Kota Factory. She also has composed and recorded a track for the upcoming Amazon Prime Series, Modern Love: Mumbai.
Apart from her major releases, Kamakshi also runs a unique series on Instagram & Youtube called Green Room Sessions, where she shares the most initial, and stripped-down versions of her unreleased music. The series has gone on to receive a lot of love from her fans with 300K+ views across all platforms.
Her noteworthy performances include major festivals (NH7 Weekender & Vh1 Supersonic) as well as intimate concerts (House Concerts, Sofar Sounds). In 2018, she performed a solo US tour across cities like New York, LA, and Austin. She also appeared on Season 1 of India’s first English singing reality TV show, The Stage, and finished as one of the top 6 contestants.
