I’ve been including some Maati Baani music videos at the MYFest Music Padlet all along, so I wanted to just take a few minutes here to say something about their music and why I think it resonates so beautifully with MYFest.

Maati Baani are a husband-wife duo from India, vocalist Nirali Kartik and composer Kartik Shah, and they produce amazing videos, featuring both their own work, plus work they do in global music collaboration online, and also videos they have produced for other performers, so that theme of global collaboration really resonates with MYFest, right? I’ll start off with the first Maati Baani video I ever saw, thanks to someone sharing it at Google+ years ago… this is the song Tore Matware Naina, featuring the Haitian singer and dancer Joy Shanti; read the notes at YouTube to learn more:

Next up is a video Maati Baani produced as tribute to India’s farmers: Saccha Mitr (True Friend). You don’t see them performing here; instead, they composed the music which is performed by some of India’s most famous folk musicians, along with absolutely gorgeous photography and music that builds on the sounds of farming and farm work. All over the world, we seriously need some love for farmers who are now on the front lines of climate change, especially in India:

For an example of global collaboration, here is a video featuring young performers from all over the world, including the amazing rapper Sparsh Shah (who is now 19 years old; he was 13 when this video was filmed): the video is Heal the World.

And finally, I’ll end with a video featuring Maati Baani performing together with musicians from Pakistan in a video that celebrates the closeness of India and Pakistan and the beauty of their peoples; turn on the closed-caption to get the lyrics in English: Rang Rangiya. It was filmed in Lahore, Karachi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. I especially love the faces at the end. Here are the notes by Maati Baani accompanying the video at YouTube: “Real freedom is when the mind is free from feelings of hatred, greed and vengeance. We present to you ‘Rang Rangiya’ – a heart felt song of Love and Friendship. How many innocent lives have been lost in the wars? How many children today are living in the shadow of fear? Love is our true nature but when greed and hatred overpowers the mind, wars happen. Countries consists of people and when people are friends how can there be wars? It’s the time when each individual rises up to say No to War because we have waited long enough.… ”

Plus there are so many more Maati Baani videos I would share; I love them all. Explore their YouTube channel if you want to see more of their beautiful and inspiring work. Plus you can follow them at Twitter: @MaatiBaani.