The 64th Grammy Award winners were announced a few hours ago and Indian music composer and environmentalist Ricky Kej won his second Grammy at the ceremony. Ricky was awarded the Best New Age Album award for ‘Divine Tides’ along with Stewart Copeland, founder and drummer of the legendary rock band, The Police. Following the win, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to Twitter and congratulated Ricky.
Retweeting Ricky’s post about their win, the prime minister wrote, “Congratulations for this remarkable feat and best wishes for your future endeavours!” In the original tweet, Ricky wrote, “Won the Grammy Award today for our album Divine Tides Filled with gratitude and love this living-legend standing with me – @copelandmusic. My 2nd Grammy and Stewart’s 6th. Thank you to everyone who ever collaborated, hired, or listened to my music. I exist because of you.”
At the ceremony, Ricky greeted the audience with a namaste. Ricky won his first Grammy in 2015 for his album, ‘Winds of Samsara’. At the time, none other than the celebrated Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer had congratulated him on his win. Speaking about his second win, Ricky said, “It’s been a surreal experience to win my second grammy award today. The album Divine Tides is a collaboration with the living legend and one of the greatest drummers of all time, Stewart Copeland who is a 5 time Grammy award winner and the drummer of the legendary band, The Police. We have collaborated on this album for almost a year and this was done remotely because most of it was created during the pandemic. It was an amazing experience to meet him in person just 7 days ago in Las Vegas. I have grown up listening to Stewarts music as a child so it’s an unreal experience to be on stage and win an award alongside him.”
He dedicated the award to ’75 years of India’s independence, that is ‘azaadi ka mahotsav’ a great milestone for India and a great year for (him) to win the award for India!’
Ricky is a Bengaluru-based dentist-turned-music composer and environmentalist. According to his bio, Ricky was born in North Carolina in 1981, is half-Punjabi, half-Marwari, and has lived in Bengaluru since he was 8. He studied at Bishop Cotton School in Bengaluru before finishing college with a degree in dentistry.
Besides Ricky, Jon Batiste, Silk Sonic and Olivia Rodrigo took home the big Grammy awards.
