Moushumi, on Pharrell Williams' team, will perform this week on the live playoffs on 'The Voice' Watch video
Throwing aside your career to pursue music is one thing for a convenience store clerk or nanny. It's something else when you're halfway through a rigorous six-year pre-med program on another continent.
Moushumi, the Edison singer and J.P. Stevens High School graduate who has made it to the live playoffs on NBC's "The Voice," is the daughter of Indian immigrants who came to the United States to pursue medical careers, and her two siblings followed in their footsteps. And then Moushumi, who grew up singing to her Freddie Mercury posters, decided to give up her medical studies in southern India for music.
Moushumi, a singer from Edison, cut her medical studies short to pursue a career in music and has made it to the live playoffs on 'The Voice.' How did her parents take the news?
"Oh my God," she says in a recent phone interview with NJ.com. "Trying to get them to understand what I was feeling and what was going through my head was incredibly difficult. Parents always want the best for you, my parents especially, they're incredibly supportive, but it's like two completely different worlds. Medicine is very stable, especially financially, and music is just a risk."
She returned to New Jersey, moving back into her childhood room but attending every open mic night she could, regularly returning home at 4 a.m., "really grinding," she says. "It really showed them I'm willing to fight for my dreams, and I'm willing to work hard. That's what had them change their minds."
Moushumi is not your typical pop diva, the belter who often makes serious inroads on shows like this. Heavily influenced by British alternative rock, her outside-the-box tone and delivery on Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" in her blind audition made three coaches turn around (and the fourth, Blake Shelton, said he would have had he not already filled his team).
"It's crazy that you just sort of navigated around the song and made it your own thing," Pharrell Williams, who ultimately snagged her despite Adam Levine and Christina Aguilera's interest, told her.
"What I love about Pharrell is he really represents individuality," Moushumi says. "That's something that always resonated with me. Growing up, I think I always felt a little bit different, and I never truly felt I belonged until I started doing music at open mics, and that's where I met people who had the same dream that I did. Pharrell is somebody who understands that."
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Moushumi almost didn't make it to the blind auditions. She and a friend had been producing a music video to submit to NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series when the friend, a big fan of "The Voice," convinced her to make a video to submit to the show's producers, who are less reliant on the open mass cattle calls that characterized "American Idol." "I never saw myself on a show like this, but he convinced me," she says. They sent off the video, and she forgot about it.
Six months later, she got an email from "The Voice" and, thinking it was a joke, ignored it. Then she got a phone call inviting her for a private audition. "I did it, I made it through, and I thought, myabe this is something that I can do. It's just funny how things work out when you don't expect them."
The live playoffs are Monday and Tuesday starting at 8 p.m. on NBC.
Vicki Hyman may be reached at vhyman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @vickihy or like her on Facebook. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook, and check out TV Hangover, the podcast from Vicki Hyman and co-host Erin Medley on iTunes, Stitcher or listen here.