How a 13-year career in ad jingles led Ricky Kej to become music’s voice for the environment

Three-time Grammy winner Ricky Kej is known today as one of the world’s foremost voices using music to advocate for sustainability. But before his compositions were heard at United Nations platforms and climate conferences, Kej spent more than a decade making music for brands, producing around 3,500 jingles for TV and radio commercials.

At a session on “India 2035: Building a Self-Reliant & Sustainable Future” at the Times Network Sustainability Conclave, the composer spoke about the defining moment that made him dedicate his music to environmental causes.

Kej revealed that he spent nearly 13 years composing for advertising campaigns across India and international markets before questioning how he wanted to use his craft. “I spent the first part of my career creating music for television and radio commercials, working with almost every major brand you can imagine. During those years, I realised that companies understood something very important, the extraordinary power of music. A melody doesn’t just communicate a message; it stays with you. Think about a national anthem. You hear just a few notes and instantly feel a sense of pride. Every faith has songs that evoke devotion and responsibility. If music is powerful enough to sell products and services, I kept asking myself, why couldn’t it be just as powerful in inspiring people to care about the environment, sustainability and positive social change? That question completely changed the direction of my life,” he said.

That realisation prompted the first major shift in his career. Instead of creating music to market products, Kej began composing around subjects he deeply cared about nature, climate change and sustainability.

The second turning point came in 2015, when he won his first Grammy Award for Winds of Samsara. Shortly afterwards, Kej met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a conversation he credits with giving his work a renewed sense of purpose. “After winning my first Grammy, I had the opportunity to meet the Honourable Prime Minister. We spoke at length about the environment, climate change and sustainability. Seeing how passionate I was, he encouraged me to stop chasing everything else and focus entirely on creating music around the issues I truly believed in. That conversation gave me the confidence to take the plunge. Since then, every piece of music I create has been driven by purpose, and that purpose has almost always been the environment.”

Over the past decade, that decision has transformed Kej from a commercial composer into one of India’s leading cultural ambassadors for climate action. Today, he is a United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Goodwill Ambassador, has performed at the United Nations, and has used his music to amplify conversations around biodiversity, land restoration and sustainability across the world.

Looking back, Kej says the biggest change was not in the kind of music he made, but in the reason he made it. For a musician who spent years composing jingles that helped products stay in people’s minds, the mission today is far more enduring, which is to create music that encourages people to care for the planet long after the final note has faded.