• As told by Shashika Madurapperuma a.k.a N Marc

Shashika Madurapperuma, better known by his stage name N Marc, recalls his childhood as being musical. While most of his childhood memories are vague, one vivid memory stands stark in his mind – wanting to become a musician. 

“I don’t remember wanting to be the first in the class or wanting to be a doctor or an engineer. I just saw myself in the future in front of a crowd, playing my music,” he told The Daily Morning Brunch. Unlike most kids his age, he aspired to be perfect in everything he did, to reduce the time spent on everyday life and focus most of his life on music.

“My dreams were really beautiful. It was a fantasy. I loved it. I spent most of my time dwelling in this fantasy,” he told us, adding that music was all he had to keep him grounded. Outside of this fantasy, life was not great – Madurapperuma told us he was the youngest of four in a low-income family raised by a single mom. 

“My dad passed away in 1999. We lived in Polonnaruwa. Life was not as easy as we imagined. We went through every suffering imaginable. It’s not a story, it’s the reality of our lives,” he shared, adding that made them who they are today.

Madurapperuma studied at Jayanthipura Junior School until he finished his O/L education, where he was surrounded by caring and loving teachers. “They identified my skills as I developed them, and gave me every resource they could to help us to do what we love,” Madurapperuma said, adding that his older siblings were in the school dancing team, and that he would sit and watch them practise after school. 

“That’s where I found my love for traditional drums – whenever they would take a break, I’d head over and play with the drums. One day, the teacher, her name was Mrs. Mallika, noticed me playing the ‘gata beraya’ – the Kandyan drum – and realised I was playing as though I was trained in it.” Since that day, he became known as “The Little Drummer”. He said that the teacher treated him like he was her own son, providing the guidance he needed to succeed in a musical career.

“I ended up being renowned in the area for my skills with the drums – I was asked to play at events happening in my village and was even given the chance to perform at the Kandy perahera,” he told us, describing his journey to the top.

Discovering electronic music production

The drums weren’t enough for him. He had many ideas when it came to music and was searching for a means to create them. “A friend in my A/L class told me about a software that could create music tracks. We immediately went over to his house and I tinkered around with this software, making a few beats,” he said, adding that at the time, he had no computer at home and that he will forever be grateful to his friends for routinely lending him their computer. “I was quick to get a job, save money, and four years later, bought my first laptop,” he told us, adding that this signified the beginning of a new chapter in his life in 2016.

Turning passion into an art

So far, he has released many singles. His first single was a track called Simple, released under his artist name N Marc. Other singles include Converter, Revival, Behind You, Where the Party, and Blue to name a few, after which he released his first EP consisting of four tracks.

“Apart from my producing career, I have performed at numerous major festivals and EDM events like ‘Glam Fest’, ‘Electrolizer’, ‘Trance Mee’, ‘#Tag’, ‘Wonderland’, and twice in my own event called ‘Electro Arcade’ from 2017 to 2020 around the island,” he informed us.

Globally, Madurapperuma has remixed for the Romanian superstar Otilia in 2021. His remix to her single Prisonera was featured in a Memories remix album in 2021. He has also remixed for the Bulgarian superstar Andrea with her single Amor Peligroso in 2022. Now, Marc runs his own audio production service and a record label named Hela Recordings.

Musical entrepreneurship

Lately, he has been delving deeper into his production career. So, he started working as a ghost producer for other artists around the world. “Actually, they reached out to me with opportunities as they saw my content online. So that opened up a different path for me, which enabled me to learn more secrets in the field and earn at the same time,” he said.

At the end of 2020, he chose music production as his full-time career and continued producing electronic music for other artists and clients from the US, UK, Germany, Australia, India, Russia, Italy, and more. “In the meantime, I built my own home studio setup. When I think of my beginnings, I consider this a great achievement as a homegrown producer. I met many different people who taught me many lessons I had never thought of,” he said.

We asked Madurapperuma about the biggest lesson he has learnt over the span of his career. “The importance of determination and working smart. If I had not had these two characteristics, I would have failed a long time ago.” He believes we should learn from our mistakes, and compare ourselves with our older selves; he pointed out that being mindful of all of our own actions makes it easy for us to identify where we went wrong and correct them.

The Daily Morning Brunch also asked him what the general process for his music production was. “In my process, there is no perfect or fixed order of producing a song. That always depends on the inspiration – where I get my inspiration from. Is that from a fresh idea or another song I just listened to? Or am I inspired by a sound from the kitchen I just heard when mom was handling kitchen tools? It can’t be determined exactly,” he said.

But, when working with other professionals, he is always guided by what they want. “Sometimes they just give us melodies or some instrumentals – either an incomplete production or some lyrics. Apart from electronic music I have produced blues, fusion, game music, and even kids’ rhymes. And some uncommon music. Regardless of what I am tasked to do, I believe I can do better than what is expected,” he said.

Initially, he said he did exactly what the client wanted, but later, he started including his input in the creation as well. “Like with sound designing and advanced mixing stuff, such as unique ambiences and textures for each track, characteristics development, creative reverb, and delay techniques. The clients like it, most of the time, and they continue to work with me. And that makes the music stand out from the competition as well.”

New release

Madurapperuma is to release a new song soon; we asked him about what inspired it and the message behind it. “The new song is actually a good example of what I mentioned above. I met this composer from India whose name was Jagan Jazz. He had this idea to create a new fusion of music with Indian classical tunes and modern electronic sound. So, we have been working together with multiple tracks, experimenting with different music styles. And this single called The Raga Found Me is the latest product of that new musical concept.”

The song is inspired by the Kerala classical music style and modern hip-hop and trap music. It’s a different music structure – there is an intro, and then a raga by a female singer, followed by rap and beautiful instrumentals with flute and sitar, and deep electronic synth and drums. The song itself talks about a musician’s lifestyle.

Madurapperuma told us that the idea of this song was actually a challenge because there were multiple song styles and varying tracks. Basically, it is a three-track combination. So, he had to make it audience friendly and the composer Jagan needed an extraordinary end result. “I usually don’t like to leave the listener feeling bored at the end of my tracks. So, I always care about the excitement they get during every minute of my productions.”

For the rest of the year, Madurapperuma has a lot more music coming up and collaborations with international artists. He told his fans to keep an eye out on his socials to see what is next in store for him.