Eric Nam To Collaborate With Armaan Malik And KSHMR, Hoping To Inspire Asian Youths

Eric Nam will be teaming up with the Indian singer Armaan Malik and Indian-American producer KSHMR to collaborate on a new track, “Echo.” The track is not only a celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, but also what the artists hope to be an inspiration to young Asian creators around the world.

As a step towards further representation and diversity in mainstream music scenes, these artists have teamed up for what Rolling Stone India is calling “one of the most important collaborations in Asian and global pop culture.”

Being an Indian artist–because we’ve not seen a lot of representation on the global stage–I feel a kind of responsibility. This is not something that’s happened before, this is something that’s so new for India and Indian musicians. It’s beautiful how artists from different countries are so deep-rooted in their cultures but come together to do something which–even though it’s different–is still very much them.

–Armaan Malik to Rolling Stone India

The three of them hope to inspire young Asian individuals to rise up, not only in the music field, but also film, politics and more.

I really wish we had more peers, I wish we had a bigger network of people people really killing it and representing us across the board. Growing up, we always wanted to see more people like us on the big screen in culturally relevant places, but traditionally those places just haven’t been as open to us. I think they’re finally starting to open slowly and it comes at a time when racial tensions, societal tensions as an all-time high… So I think it’s a very incredible time for us to be doing what we do today.

–Eric Nam

The house that I grew up in was really hard on formal education and when I didn’t want to go to college and wanted to pursue music, they sent me to India with no return ticket. My grandpa was going to beat it into my head that music was a hobby…[Grammys, international recognition] is all there for the taking, it’s just we’ve been going to Google, we’ve been going to the doctor positions. As great as that is, it left someone like me feeling like a square trying to fit in a circle.

–KSHMR

“Echo” will be released on May 21 at midnight local time. The music video will premiere at 4pm KST.

Let’s go! 👊🏻 https://t.co/ytPXSupvPV

— ARMAAN MALIK (@ArmaanMalik22) May 17, 2021