Musician Jassie Gift on his two-decade-long career, his latest collaboration ‘Thakthom’ and more 

Jassie Gift's 20-year-old versatile music career, from viral hits to Afro Hip-hop jams, collaborations with legends, and upcoming live shows.

During his 20-year career as a musician, Jassie Gift never limited himself to a particular tone, tongue or temperament for his music. Since his debut album in 2003, the singer-composer has produced songs that have attained cult classic status, and they continue being played at college festivals, school excursions and road trips. Jassie’s compositions, once the catchy soundtrack of viral TikTok trending videos, still pop up on Instagram reels with influencers shaking a leg to his chartbusters. The latest addition to the list of Jassie’s jams is an Afro hip-hop song, ‘Thakthom’ by Reyan and Melvin of the New Thira Productions based in Ireland featuring the veteran musician. The video has garnered over three lakh views on YouTube since its release in October.

“Reyan and Melvin’s last album Thamburatti (released in 2022) was very popular in the UK. They are passionate and always want to do more. I have collaborated with them before. They reached out to me and that’s how I got to be featured in this song,” says Jassie. The duo currently residing in Dublin, has Malayali roots. “They started to make music to represent their culture abroad,” says Jassie.

Jassie’s collaborations with Reyan began last year when they were seen dancing to the tunes of Jassie’s hit song ‘Themma themma themmadikkaatte’, from the movie Rain Rain Come Again (2004), sung by Jyotsna Radhakrishnan in a video that went viral. 

During his undergraduate days at the University College, Thiruvananthapuram, Jassie started as a freelance keyboardist for bands based in the city such as The Gypsies, Nine Hours, Baiju and the Band and so on. It was during this time that he dabbled in singing Western songs as well.  

“When we were in the band, we had to listen to all genres of songs as we would get requests. We would listen to country, hard rock, metal, soft rock...,” he recalls. 

Jassie also feels that his generation was fortunate from its early days, as it was exposed to the likes of MS Baburaj aka Babukka, and G Devarajan master, as well as the music of Pink Floyd; he calls himself a Floydian of that era.

In late 2003, the release of the music album, 4 the People, a Jayaraj-directorial, changed Jassie’s fate. This was the first audio release he ever had. Despite having composed in two movies, Bhibatsa and Saphalam before, this one offered him a chance to lend his voice to one of the songs. Jassie says that Jayaraj insisted on recording his voice. “I was staying away from singing Malayalam songs; I just wanted to be a composer. Then, I started singing the rap portions; I volunteered to Jayaraj sir, saying that I could do those portions of the song, but we had to get someone like Adnan Sami to do the lead vocals,” he says. However, during the shooting, Jayaraj used Jassie’s voice for the track and decided to retain him as the lead singer, thus making him the voice behind the hit song ‘Lajjavathiye’