Janaki Easwar, a 13-year-old Indian Australian girl grabbed everyone’s attention in August 2021 through her performance on the singing reality show The Voice Australia. Her stirring rendition of ‘Lovely’ by Billie Eilish was just mindblowing.
It was a blind audition and after her performance, all four judges turned their chairs for her. The audition video went viral garnering more than five million views on The Voice Global’s YouTube channel.
Janaki was the youngest ever contestant to participate in the popular reality show The Voice. Her parents have their roots in Kerala and Janaki proudly wore kasavu mundu, a traditional Malayali attire along with her western outfit.
After singing ‘Lovely’, the judges requested Janaki to sing an Indian song and she sang Maathe, a Daru Varnam in Raaga Kamas.
Janaki’s parents moved to Australia in 2007. Born in 2009 in Melbourne, she started learning Carnatic music when she was 6 years old. In conversation with the Global Indian, she talked about how she is connected to the Indian culture.
The first language I learned as a child was Malayalam. So, I automatically became fluent in that. I’m grateful to my parents who helped me remember where I came from.
Janaki’s father is a familiar singer in Melbourne’s Malayalam-speaking community while her uncle Arun Gopan is a playback singer in South Indian movies.
The young singer is also a songwriter and has written her own covers like The Clown and I’ve Been Waiting. Her song The Clown released during the 2020 Melbourne lockdown and I’ve Been Waiting was launched earlier this year.
Her cover of AR Rahman’s Bhoomi Bhoomi too has been garnering attention recently.
Not just singing, Janaki also loves playing guitar, violin and ukulele. She loves singers like Tori Kelly, Yebba, and Eva Cassidy and has her favourite Korean R&B artists. Growing up, she listened to a lot of Malayalam, Hindi, and Tamil songs and tries to sing in Indian languages too. The 13-year-old will also be singing for a Malayalam movie soon.
