Artist of the Week: WMUH’s Michelle Rajan

Michelle Rajan ‘21 is a student of multiple talents and aspirations. Studying as a Neuroscience major with a creative writing minor, Rajan is one of the many talented contributors towards Muhlenberg’s local radio show, WMUH, in which, she features music of multiple languages and cultures. This includes Malayalam, Hindi, English, Bengali, and Korean.

Rajan has been a DJ on WMUH since her first semester, saying “I noticed WMUH at the fall activities fair during my first semester of freshman year and figured, ‘Why not?’” She continues, “Now over a year later, I’ve got my own show called ‘Continental Drift’ and I’m the business manager. I never imagined getting this involved, it was really just because I wanted to join some clubs, and now it’s become one of the most important aspects of my life.”

When planning her shows, Rajan has a particular order of what content to feature and when to play it.  

“I usually choose some Bollywood music first,” she elaborates, “like what’s new or even what’s been stuck in my head. Then I try to find some other language songs that might complement the Hindi ones well, like Malayalam or Bengali. Finally, I’ll try to find about an hour of English-language; I’d say I choose classic rock most of the time when it comes to English. And then if I’m really into a K-drama that week, I’ll play a few songs from its OST.”

Rajan’s show flows very well, shifting between languages, cultures, genres, and particular tones within the music. This allows for a great listen and an amazing opportunity to learn of new musical genres and mediums.

As far as inspiration was concerned, “my boyfriend is a singer-songwriter and his music basically follows me around. I’d say he was my inspiration for creating the show so that I could hear his music on the radio.” On this note, Rajan shared how she would like to feature more local talent in the future.

“I want to add a LOT more local talent on my show. More Muhlenberg artists would be great but, honestly, even anyone in the Lehigh Valley. There’s so much talent in our area and I want to give them the opportunity to pursue that.”

Rajan also holds another goal regarding her show, particularly the impact it may have on her community.

“The Indian community isn’t that large on campus, but I think it’s still important to make sure we’ve got some kind of representation. So it’s almost like I’m giving the diaspora some kind of a platform even if it’s not the most conventional one, since I play more than only Indian music. But I’d say that’s what makes the representation accurate; the Indian diaspora’s listening to more than Bollywood music.”

Rajan plans on continuing her career as a radio show host, hopefully branching out to other communities beyond Muhlenberg’s campus.

“I’m hoping to collaborate with TapeSwap radio soon to start planning out ways to scope out talent on campus and also to connect with more of the college radio stations in the area.”

Lauren Mazur

Lauren Mazur, member of the class of 2019, serves as the co-editor of the Arts & Culture section. Now a Junior, she is a double major in English and Music as well as a part of the Pre-Law program.

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