Nandini Nayal aka Gini, the youngest performer on the recently-announced 2026 Lollapalooza line-up, opens up about her fairytale rise to the big stage
Nandini Nayal aka Gini in performance. PICS COURTESY/@this.is.gini
Once upon a time, if it didn’t exist on a Bollywood track audio cassette, your song would be christened an ‘album song’ in India. Nineteen-year-old singer-songwriter Nandini Nayal aka Gini might not remember a time before ‘indie’ became a byword for her genre, but the teen pop star is an old soul at heart. “On road trips, my parents would play everything from Harry Belafonte and Cliff Richard, to Geeta Dutt and Adele. I just sang along,” she reveals. Come January 2026, it might be Mumbai’s audience who will sing along to the Dehradun-born artiste at her big Lollapalooza debut.
“I was talking to my manager, and she told me there was a chance I would make it to the festival line-up. It was hard to believe because I had been dancing in the living room earlier that day, performing my songs and imagining it was the Lollapalooza stage. It’s what dreams are made of. I’ve always been a sceptic, but perhaps manifesting does work,” she laughs. It takes a bit more than wishful thinking, we’d say. In the past three years, Gini has gained nearly three lakh monthly listeners on streaming platforms, sold out a multi-city India tour, and become Instagram’s favourite teen pop sensation.
A 15-year-old Gini in her first music video, an acousitic piano cover
The musician’s new music video, Naadaani plays out like a love letter to lost love, shot in the style of a nostalgic 35mm retro film. The sombre, synth-heavy ballad is not exactly her first tryst with melancholy, she reveals. “The first song I wrote was written like an angsty teenager, although I wasn’t one. I was 12 years old, and noticed how kids around me felt reckless and angsty. I decided to turn it into a song. I have always been telling stories I observed through music in order to understand how those emotions worked,” she recalls.
It takes more than honest music and thoughtful videography to go places in 2025, Gini agrees. The artiste’s quirky social media presence — in stark contrast to her songwriter persona — is a giveaway. “I think, whether as a boon or bane, social media is an incredibly powerful asset. It’s the most accessible way to get people to hear your work. But things can also go south if you don’t do it right, given the dwindling attention spans. Striking a balance would be the most important disclaimer. You put so much effort and work into making a song, you’d better put in that work into making sure people hear it,” she reasons.
As for what’s next for the artiste before she rings in her 20th birthday, it looks like a mix of “something hyperpop, something punk rock, something ballad-orchestral, and something alt-pop. Very different sounds, themes, and feelings.” For a teenager who cites the unusual mix of Kendrick Lamar, Swanand Kirkire and Geeta Dutt as inspiration, it hardly comes as a surprise. “It’s all experimental. I have a bunch of new songs that I was saving for a big band performance, and I’m going to play all of them at the festival. The aim is to release a bunch of them before the festival, so people will have homework to do with remembering the lyrics,” she signs off.
LOG ON TO @this.is.gini on Instagram; Gini on Spotify
Young and bold
Mark your calendars to catch these young artistes take over the festival stage on January 24 and 25
A bird’s eye view of the 2024 edition of the festival at Mahalaxmi Racecourse
>> Rudy Mukta, 22
Genre: Indie pop
>> Knock2, 25
Genre: Dance/electronic
>> Destroy Lonely, 24
Genre: Rap
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