Sommaiya's nasha: A Hindi Pop Anthem for Anxiety

Some songs are written to be danced to. Others are written because there was nothing else to do with the feeling. Sommaiya Angrish's "nasha" is both at once. It is a bright, upbeat Hindi-pop track about helplessness, and it now has an animated music video that took a year to make. Sommaiya describes it as a song "for the emotionally misplaced". He calls the whole project "an anthem for our anxieties."

The artist, who releases music as Sommaiya, wrote to Discography about the track and its new video. Here is the story he told us.

From Meerut to California

"I'm Sommaiya & I make Hindi pop music," he says in his introduction, and his path to that sentence crosses a few continents. He was born in Meerut and grew up in Ghaziabad. He spent his college years in Florida and became a full-time musician in California.

Music started early. Sommaiya says he has been learning different instruments since he was five. The real turning point came in high school, when he discovered digital production. "My focus shifted to bringing my own ideas to life," he told Discography. That self-reliance runs through "nasha": he wrote, produced, performed and mixed the song himself.

So why Hindi, for a musician who has spent most of his adult life in the United States? His answer is simple: "I write songs in Hindi because it's the language that carries my pain the best."

He is just as clear about who the music is for. "I truly believe this music is for the emotionally misplaced, the ones who've lived in their heads for too long, carrying grief, love, and questions with no clear home." He also says plainly where much of it begins: "A lot of my music comes out of my anxiety."

"nasha" is not his only work. His press photos mention a photoshoot for his sophomore album, Sheeshmehel, a music video for a song called "AJNABEE", and an intimate show in San Francisco in 2025. His YouTube channel also features "sabr", an earlier live-action music video (YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_J51uUDeak).

The song made of helplessness

"nasha" began in a studio in San Francisco. At the time, Sommaiya says, his mother and sister were going through some struggles back home in India. He was far away and could not do much to help.

"nasha came out of this helplessness of not being able to do much about it," he told Discography. "It became a request for someone to save me from myself."

The obvious choice would have been a slow ballad. He went the other way. "I developed the music around it very upbeat, as an attempt at creating a sad song to dance to," he says. In his own description, the track "pairs an introspective mood with a contemporary electronic pulse." It is short and punchy, running about two and a half minutes, and the beat pulls against the heaviness of the words.

Sommaiya says he made the song in 2024. Streaming listings show "nasha" released as a single in March 2024 (Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/sv/album/559050442). It also appears on his 2024 project where's my drink? (Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.co.uk/tracks/B0DQXR2B8J). It is a self-release, out on his own imprint, sommaiya सौम्य.

There is a long tradition of sad songs you can dance to, and pop has always been good at hiding heartbreak inside a groove. What gives "nasha" its pull is how plainly Sommaiya explains why he wrote it. He wasn't chasing a trend. He was trying to make room for a feeling he couldn't fix.

A video built over a year in Athens

The song could have stopped there. A year later, though, it found a second life through a friendship.

In 2025, Sommaiya met Lena Kaouki, an artist from Greece, at an art residency. The two lived there together for three months. "Very soon, we realized how equally anxious we were," he says. "Our obsessive thoughts connected us & we became friends."

When the residency ended, they decided to make an animated video for "nasha". Sommaiya flew to Greece and filmed some live-action shots at Lena's fine arts college in Athens. Their goal, he says, was to "convey our anxieties with money, love, and relationships through this video."

Lena then spent about a year animating it. Sommaiya says the process included experiments with green screening, a 3D model of him, and a mix of several animation styles. That layering suits the song. Anxiety rarely arrives in one tidy form, and the video doesn't try to give it one.

"I wanted nasha to represent what it truly is: an anthem for our anxieties," Sommaiya says.

For him, the most meaningful part of the process wasn't technical. "The most beautiful thing about making this video was being able to share parts of my mind that I'd usually keep to myself," he told Discography. "Lena turned those thoughts into a whole world and now we get to share that world with you!"

This is how much independent music gets made now: two artists from different countries, connected by a residency and a shared state of mind, building something slowly without a big budget or a deadline. The single's cover art was made by Harshil Arora, which adds one more artist's hand to a small, personal project.

Watch the official animated video, titled "Sommaiya Angrish - nasha नशा (Official Animated Music Video)":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJd4JLIiGiM

Why nasha lands

It's easy to say a song is "about anxiety". It's harder to make one that sounds like the real thing: restless, looping, cheerful on the surface and frayed underneath. "nasha" sits in that space. The title means intoxication, and the song treats that idea loosely. It can be read as the high of a good beat or as the trap of your own thoughts.

For listeners who grew up between cities, languages or countries, Sommaiya's story will feel familiar too. Meerut, Ghaziabad, Florida, California, Athens: the song carries all of those places. The constant is Hindi, the language he says carries his pain best.

Credits

• Song: nasha
• Written, produced, performed and mixed by: Sommaiya Angrish
• Mastered by: Jatin Bisht
• Music video animated and directed by: Lena Kaouki
• Cover art: Harshil Arora
• Label: sommaiya सौम्य (self-released)

Where to listen and follow

Follow Lena Kaouki, the animator and director of the video, on Instagram: @lena.k.aouki: https://www.instagram.com/lena.k.aouki/

Related on Discography

• Best Indian Independent Artists of 2026: https://discography.in/articles/best-indian-independent-artists-2026
• The Languages of Indian Indie: https://discography.in/articles/indian-indie-languages
• Indian Indie Collabs: https://discography.in/articles/indian-indie-collabs

Photos courtesy of the artist.

Who is Sommaiya?

Sommaiya is Sommaiya Angrish, a Hindi-pop singer, songwriter and producer born in Meerut who grew up in Ghaziabad and now works as a full-time musician in California.

What genre is Sommaiya?

Sommaiya makes Hindi pop; nasha pairs an introspective mood with a contemporary electronic pulse.

Where is Sommaiya from?

He was born in Meerut, grew up in Ghaziabad, studied in Florida and is based in California.

What is the song nasha about?

Sommaiya wrote nasha out of helplessness while his mother and sister were going through struggles in India, and calls it a sad song to dance to.

Who made the nasha music video?

The animated video was made with Lena Kaouki, a Greek artist Sommaiya met at an art residency, who spent about a year animating it.