Radhika Vekaria Could Not Even Say Her Name — but She Could Sing. Now, She's Nominated for a Grammy (Exclusive)

There once was a time when Radhika Vekaria couldn’t speak.

"I had trouble just saying my name," Vekaria, tells PEOPLE in a recent interview. "I had a very bad speech impediment, and I was severely bullied for it. We get bullied for many things in life. Mine was my ability to express myself. And so that was something that forced me into the silence of my own mind."

It was this silence that now has erupted within the music of the Indian-origin British artist, who from a young age began to realize that while she couldn’t talk, she could most definitely sing.

"A lot of people who have a speech impediment actually are very good singers," says Vekaria, whose ultra-successful 2020 debut album Sapta: The Seven Ways resulted in her becoming the first mantra artist to perform at SXSW in Austin, Texas in 2022. "When you add melody and a bit of cadence and a bit of music to it, it helps the mind relax and the nervous system relax. It creates a different neural pathway in the brain. So for me, singing makes me feel free."

And while friends and family were immediately impressed with Vekaria’s talents, all she really wanted to do was learn to speak. "I never thought I would be speaking on stages and do all the things that I'm doing," Vekaria says. "It's really the essence of the music that I make that really helped me free my voice to be able to speak."

Indeed, as Vekaria approached adulthood, she says her speech impediment began to "heal itself" in the most peculiar of ways.

"As a 3-year-old, I would just naturally sing and chant mantras," she remembers. "So as an adult, when I went back into that as a meditation, I realized that it was having a tremendous effect on my ability to articulate and speak."

In fact, today, the speech impediment is somewhat difficult to even detect.

"Years ago, I had this epiphany that when I'm trying to speak, I actually have a power because people would listen to me a little closer," Vekaria explains. "That was a turning point for me, and I wasn't really afraid of it anymore."

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Her personal struggles and her journey to healing now serves as the backbone of her New Age album Warriors of Light, currently nominated for best new age, ambient, or chant album at Sunday's Grammy Awards.

"It took four years of work to make it happen, and a lifetime of being made to realize the importance of finding my voice,” Vekaria says of the album, on which she sings in Sanskrit, Hindi, Tamil and English. “It's so wonderful to bring something that bridges ancient systems and cultures and philosophies into a more modern palette while still honoring the past. You can still be in the present while honoring the past.”

All who now treasure the very voice of Vekaria are also finding themselves slowly healing their inner struggles, simply by listening to the entirety of Warriors of Light.

"When I made this album, the process was from purification to peace," she explains. "So, you can listen to it front ways, and you can also listen to it backwards. You can start at a peaceful place, and then purification is when anything forces change. You will find yourself at the place in an album that will resonate with you at the time, and it will change every time you listen to it."

Take a song such as "Liberate," which touches on the very real idea that every human finds themselves questioning life in one way or another.

"Even if we have tremendous amounts of faith, we still have things in life that happen that knocks us down and we are left to question everything," she says. "But that's the whole point of being on a journey. You wouldn't go on a journey unless you had questions. If you were just accepting what the world told you, you wouldn't find your own answers."

In fact, Vekaria says the answers come through on the mantras found in the chorus of the breathtaking song. "It's a conversation between the ancient wisdom and the modern human situation," she says. "It's this dance between the ancient and the current."

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It's a dance that even she benefits from.

"At some points in my life, when I felt that the winds blowing very hard, I would say the mantra found in ‘Liberate’ vigorously, and it would bring me back into my body and ground me," she says. "I just wanted to share what has had an effect on me with others."

The Grammys will broadcast live on Sunday, Feb. 2 from Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on CBS or stream them live and on-demand on Paramount+.

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