This Hyderabad singer has started a music revolution in Mumbai's Dharavi slums. Here's how

There is more to Gomathi Iyer than her beautiful voice and the soulful songs that she has been covering on Instagram since the lockdown began. In December 2019, the Hyderabad-born artist who is currently based out of Mumbai, started the All Girl Choir in Dharavi's government school with 25 students. Every Saturday, the 21-year-old would make her way to the school to teach the girls how to sing and it was all going very well before the pandemic brought everything to a screeching halt. "I have a vision of making these girls sing front and centre and not just in the background," says the melodious and kind-hearted Gomathi.
 

She gave up music classes after class XII because she was preparing for Medicine but she missed it a lot. That's when she realised her passion for singing

It was in 2018 that this youngster made her way to Mayanagri in Maharashtra to pursue music, first academically at The True School of Music and then, professionally too. She has performed live for MTV Beats, VH1 India and for some of Mumbai's major radio stations. She is also associated with Dharavi Rocks, an educational music and dance project by NGO Acorn Foundation. Circling back to the All Girl Choir, she says, "The school allotted girls from classes IV, V and VI with musical inclinations. We used to offer kids snacks as an incentive to come to class. Towards the end, the girls actually started asking me to come more than once a week and that was great," shares Gomathi though she admits that a lot of hard work goes into teaching them. She also says that she can't wait to go back and start teaching them once things return to normal.

Gomathi with Dharavi Rocks | (Pic: Gomathi Iyer)

Coming to Gomathi's covers on Instagram, the talented singer says, "Growing up, we heard a lot of Hindi music and I felt like I missed out on a lot of good Telugu and Tamil music." So now, she is singing covers of songs like Maguva Maguva, Innum Konjam Naeram and so on. The youngster is enjoying doing covers for now and is looking forward to doing more of them in the future.
 

Now, she is learning production software like Logic that helps her make simple tracks that she can record the cover over

Stories behind her covers
- Arerey Manasa: Has over 73k views and Vishwaksen Naidu, the actor who features in the song, shared it. This is the first song she covered
- Samajavaragamana: Has over 39k views and actors Sushanth A and Navdeep Pallapolu shared the cover and appreciated it sincerely

For more on her, check out instagram.com/iyer.gomathi99