By Mannu Shahi

Arthur Gunn, the Nepalese superstar who made it big in the global music industry by participating in the American Idol Season 18 and winning the final runner-up position, has won the hearts of million Nepalese extended throughout the globe and well-represented the growing artistic abilities of Nepali youth.
His involvement in this celebrated television reality program is appreciated by the mass as well as metaphorically equated his victory to a Nepalese sports person taking part in the Olympics and returning home with a silver medal.
From children studying in the primary grades singing CCR’s evergreen hit Have Your Ever Seen the Rain, sung by Arthur during his audition rounds; to parents, who’ve managed to manipulate their own child’s artistic dream into a more prestigious social role, sharing posts on their personal media pages concerning Arthur’s victory or how proud his musicality has made Nepal.
There seems to be no age, gender or style restrictions when it comes to appreciating this event and the artist who dared to make all of this possible.
Shyam Nepali a virtuosic sarangi player and son of the legendary Ram Sharan Nepali, has been actively preserving and contemporizing the sound and aesthetic of the traditional Nepali fiddle.
In his 30 years of vibrant musical career Nepali’s music can be heard on over 49 different recording projects in collaboration with artists like Maestro Dhrubesh Regmi, Pramod Upadhaya, Atul Gautam, Mones Singh to name a few. Performing throughout the world in countries like America, Norway, Italy, Kyrgyzstan and more he is currently based in the US and sharing his music with many other established figures of the industry.
Diwas Gurung is a guitar player, singer/ songwriter, arranger and music producer, who was first apparent in the scene with the success of his dynamic rock group Ayurveda in the US. With his folk influenced modern guitar techniques and the song ‘Hami Aayou’ talking about the most heated political turmoil of the country back in the day, the moist civil war, he gained a passionate fan following back home which remains loyal to his music till date.
Later on Gurung embarked on a successful solo career and produced/ arranged music for many well-established singers like Bartika Eam Rai, Bikki Gurung, Neetesh Jung Kuwar, Swoopna Suman etc.
And ‘Jalai Mai’ released on 8th December is one such brilliant piece of music which brings these three phenomenal musical gems together in a three and half minutes tune. Written, composed, arranged and performed by Dibesh Pokharel aka Arthur Gunn, produced and slide/electric guitars arranged and performed by Diwas Gurung, sarangi arranged and performed by Shyam Nepali.
The delta-blues influence fused with Nepali folk timbres and structures make this piece stand apart from the trendy folk revival approach adapted in most of the popular songs heard these days.
This is definitely the best collaboration as well as release of 2020 for all the Nepali music fanatics spread globally, with the picture only video breaking the internet within less than a week of its release.