GrapeGuitarBox

GrapeGuitarBox
Background information
Birth name	Teenasai Balamu
Born	(1994-12-25) December 25, 1994 Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Origin	Bangalore, India
Genres	Indie Pop Folk
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, Musician, Producer
Instruments	Vocals, Guitar
Years active	2016-Present

Teenasai Balamu, known professionally as GrapeGuitarBox, is a London-based Indian independent singer-songwriter, musician, and music producer. Balamu is outspoken about their queer identity and uses they/them pronouns. They make original music in English and cover songs in languages ranging from English, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Punjabi, and Hindi. GrapeGuitarBox, Balamu’s stage name and solo act, is best known for ‘Wait For You’, a song that has amassed over 100k streams on Spotify alone, and has one of India’s few LGBTQ centric music videos. The music video showcases a queer love story between two Indian women. The narrative unfolds in the form of dance.

Early life

Teenasai Balamu was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu on December 25, 1994 to parents of Telugu descent. Balamu was brought up in Chennai for around 10 years before relocating with their family to Bengaluru, Karnataka where they finished the rest of their schooling. They have an older brother.

Balamu pursued their undergraduate degree in Media Studies from Symbiosis Centre for Media and Communication in Pune, and graduated with a specialisation in Advertising in 2015. Following this, Balamu returned to Bengaluru and worked in a few media-related jobs but was never satisfied with life. This led to them posting cover songs on YouTube and SoundCloud under the username ‘GrapeGuitarBox’, which eventually became their stage name. A few months later, in late 2016, Balamu quit their media jobs and started to pursue a full-time music career. In 2020, Balamu graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London with a Master of Music degree.

Career

After completing their bachelor’s degree in media and communication in 2015, Teenasai Balamu was working a few media-related jobs. Frustrated and unfulfilled, Balamu turned to posting covers of popular songs on SoundCloud under the artist name ‘GrapeGuitarBox’, and sharing them with friends and family. In early 2016, Balamu posted their first cover as GrapeGuitarBox on YouTube. It was a cover of Riptide by Vance Joy. In the first week of its release, it gained over a thousand views and was widely circulated in the local indie music community in Bengaluru. Soon after this, Balamu started performing as GrapeGuitarBox locally in Bengaluru, and eventually in other cities in India as well. Later in 2016, Balamu quit their media-related jobs and started pursuing music full-time.

Out - Debut EP

Since 2016, GrapeGuitarBox has gained international recognition for their work as an indie musician. In late 2016, they were featured on Rolling Stone India as one of 10 budding indie musicians to watch out for. Until 2018, GrapeGuitarBox continued to perform locally in India, mostly playing cover songs. In mid and late 2018, Balamu decided to start production on their debut EP titled ‘Out’.

It would go on to have 6 tracks, out of which 5 have been released till date. The EP was recorded in Bengaluru’s Third Eye Studios, with Santhos Nataraja as the recording engineer. Balamu hired session musicians to complete the EP and worked with people such as Masala Coffee’s Krishna Raj. The EP was mixed and mastered by veteran producer, Miti Adhikari, who is known for his work at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios, Foo Fighters, Nirvana, The White Stripes, and Parekh & Singh.

GrapeGuitarBox’s debut EP ‘Out’ is a 6-track project that musically illustrates stories of heartbreak, toxic relationships, hope, queerness, and the uncertainty of death, all tied together with the overarching concept of love. Shortly after production, Balamu ran a successful crowdfunding campaign to be able to produce music videos for at least a few tracks on the EP. Using these funds, they commissioned an animated music video from Mumbai-based illustrator, Priya Dali, for their first ever single ‘Run’, which was released across all streaming platforms and as a music video on YouTube in May 2019. The song was picked up by three Spotify Editorial Playlists in the first week.

For their second single, ‘Wait For You’, Balamu took on a more ambitious project. The song was released in audio form in June 2019, and was quickly added on to a few Spotify Editorial Playlists and went on to amass a huge amount of traction. In September 2019, Balamu released a music video for this track which was released as an Exclusive Premiere on Rolling Stone India. The video was one of India’s few LGBTQ videos that showcased the love story of two South Asian women and unfolded in the form of dance. Balamu co-produced and conceptualised the video. It was made by Tasveerien, a film production house based out of Bengaluru. Henna Raisinghani and Sakshi Saklecha starred as the couple.

Over the following year, in 2020, Balamu released two more singles from their EP. ‘Meant To Be Yours’ was released as an Exclusive Premiere on Rolling Stone India in May 2020. Balamu took a DIY approach for its lyric music video. They edited old footage of friends, family, and travels together and used lyric-illustrations done by their partner. The song was reviewed and played by Tom Robinson on his show on BBC Radio 6 Music and was said to have “fantastic vocal performance and an extraordinary production”. Shortly after, Balamu released their fourth single ‘Like A Dream’. GrapeGuitarBox also released their 5th single, 'It's You', from the EP in January 2021. This song was premiered on Ashanti Omkar's show on BBC Asian Network.

Outside the EP

In 2020, GrapeGuitarBox was commissioned to write, perform, and produce an original track for Tinder India’s animated short film on queer love, in association with Gaysi Family, for its project titled ‘Museum of Queer Swipe Stories’. Balamu produced a song called ‘free’ for the same purpose. Tinder’s video on YouTube has almost 2 million views. In December 2020, GrapeGuitarBox released the full version of this song on all streaming platforms. It was featured on a few Spotify Editorial Playlists and also on Ashanti Omkar’s show on BBC Asian Network.

GrapeGuitarBox has performed at numerous events in India, the UK, USA, Canada among other places. 2020 saw them being a part of pride events such as Pride Toronto, UK Black Pride, Trans March San Francisco, etc. Balamu has also done some voiceover work. They have voiced the character of a transman for an animated short film that was made by Terribly Tiny Tales in collaboration with Tinder India. Between 2017 and 2019, Balamu also worked with Urban Folk Project as a musician and actor. Balamu was also a TEDx speaker at DY Patil University in 2019 and at TEDxVersovaWomen in 2020. They spoke on non-binary identities in the former and about transgender identities in the Indian music scene in the latter.

Artist Name

Balamu chose the artist name GrapeGuitarBox because they had first made it to use as a username for Instagram. Without thinking much, they just thought of three things that they liked - grapes, guitars, and boxes (like cats like boxes) - and put them together to create a name. The name stuck when they used it to release covers and eventually original music as well.

Personal Life

Teenasai Balamu identifies as queer and non-binary transgender. They use they/them pronouns. Balamu is open and vocal about queer rights, feminism, and mental health issues, especially their OCD.

Discography

List of all GrapeGuitarBox tracks

Year	Track Name	EP/Album	Notes
2019	Run	Out	Released as a single.
2019	Wait For You	Out	Released as a single.
2020	Meant To Be Yours	Out	Released as a single.
2020	Like A Dream	Out	Released as a single.
2020	free	Single	Released as a single.
2021	It's You	Out	Released as a single.

References

This article "GrapeGuitarBox" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:GrapeGuitarBox. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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