Kundan Agarwalla Is Trying to Make the Kind of Music That Stays With You During Lonely Nights

Some artists begin with ambition.

Others begin with escape.

For Kundan Agarwalla, music first felt like relief.

Not performance.
Not strategy.
Not even identity.

Just relief.

He was 14 when he found himself singing old songs at a karaoke session, and somewhere in that moment, something clicked. For the first time, there was no pressure to become anything. No performance anxiety. No overthinking. Just a strange sense of ease that felt more honest than most things around him.

That feeling stayed.

And eventually, it turned into songwriting.

A lot of independent artists speak about music as passion. Kundan speaks about it more like emotional survival.

During his teenage years, he went through a deeply lonely phase where most emotions stayed internalized. Instead of finding outlets through people, he slowly started channeling those feelings into music. That emotional isolation ended up shaping not only his writing style, but the entire emotional atmosphere of his sound.

Which explains why his music consistently leans toward softness.

Not softness as weakness.
Softness as refuge.

There’s a calmness running through many of his songs that feels intentional — almost like they are written for listeners trying to breathe through difficult phases quietly rather than dramatically.

Sonically, Kundan gravitates toward soulful Hindi indie and indie-pop textures, but what makes his work feel personal is not necessarily experimentation or complexity. It’s honesty.

He doesn’t approach songwriting trying to sound “distinct.”

In fact, he openly rejects that mindset.

To him, individuality naturally happens when artists speak truthfully about what they feel. And that perspective shows up in the way his songs unfold — emotionally direct, uncomplicated, and rooted in personal memory rather than performance-heavy writing.

There’s very little posturing in the way he talks about music.

That absence of pretension actually works in his favor.

Like many artists shaped by emotional songwriting cultures online, Kundan was heavily influenced by Ed Sheeran during his early years. But instead of copying that acoustic-pop framework directly, he seems to have absorbed something more important from it: vulnerability without overproduction.

That influence can especially be felt in tracks like Tum Mile and Yaad, where the emphasis is less on sonic spectacle and more on emotional accessibility.

The songs are built to feel familiar.

Comforting.

Easy to return to after difficult days.

What’s interesting is that Kundan is also aware of the limitations of staying inside that emotional lane for too long.

He acknowledges that some listeners perceive his music as “too soothing” or not commercial enough, and rather than becoming defensive about it, he seems conscious of evolving beyond repetition while still protecting the emotional core of his sound.

That self-awareness matters.

Because one of the biggest traps for emotionally driven indie artists is mistaking emotional consistency for artistic growth. Kundan appears to understand that challenge already, even this early into his journey.

And despite being relatively new to releasing music online, the early signals are encouraging.

His songs Yaad and Tum Mile have already crossed thousands of views on YouTube, earned playlist placements, and contributed to a sharp growth spike on Spotify, where his listener count reportedly jumped by over 2,000%.

For a developing independent artist operating outside major industry ecosystems, that kind of organic movement matters far more than vanity metrics.

It suggests resonance.

Not just reach.

There’s also something quietly admirable about the emotional intention behind his work.

Kundan repeatedly returns to one idea while talking about his music: helping people through lonely phases.

Not impressing them.
Not proving technical brilliance.
Not chasing trends.

Helping them feel less alone.

That emotional purpose gives his music direction beyond aesthetics.

With an upcoming release titled Tu Teri Baatein arriving on April 24, Kundan now finds himself at the beginning of a larger creative question every emotionally driven artist eventually faces:

How do you evolve without losing sincerity?

Because sincerity may attract listeners initially, but evolution is what keeps them returning.

Right now, Kundan Agarwalla’s music feels like someone sitting quietly beside loneliness instead of trying to overpower it. And in an era where so much music competes for attention through noise and immediacy, there’s something unexpectedly powerful about an artist willing to stay gentle.

Not because it’s easier.

But because for him, it’s real.