threetime grammy awardwinning musician and environmentalist ricky kej will be performing in mumbai tomorrow for a concert in collaboration with the ministry of culture he says that this event is close to his heart because it is about efforts to revitalise cultural spaces in a few cities in india ricky who is also a goodwill ambassador for unhcr united nations high commissioner for refugees and has been working with refugee musicians spoke to us about his upcoming performance how three grammy wins have impacted his work and why he chooses to work with artistes who he feels are better musicians than he isexcited to perform for the first time against the backdrop of gateway of indiaricky who last performed in mumbai four years ago will be launching a new anthem created for the national gallery of modern art on march 19 he explains cultural spaces are really important for a city because they provide opportunities for artistes to perform and to showcase their talents im really glad that the ministry of culture has made me a part of this our first collaboration was for the republic day parade last year they had a cultural program featuring an 11minute dance piece with about 500 dancers from across india called vande bharatam bikram ghosh and i composed the music for this dance i also performed a concert for the culture ministry for world mother language day at the ignca in new delhi and now after winning my third grammy award i have this opportunity to perform for the mumbai council at the gateway of indiaricky kejill be wearing the same sherwani that i got designed for the grammysricky kej says that his fashion is also driven by environmental concerns i will be wearing the same sherwani for the gateway india concert that i got designed for the grammys i have worn it 10 times since then ricky continues last year i wore a blue sherwani for the grammys which i also wore for over 40 other events and then it tore apart my social media is filled with pictures of me wearing that blue sherwani im trying my level best in my own small way to change the paradigm that every picture on instagram has to have a different costume i tell people to rewear their clothes and also to put it on social media to show that okay i am wearing my costume again because i want to be more responsible towards the planet i dont want to subscribe to this useandthrow economy he adds fast fashion is one of the biggest causes of climate change and it has a strong and large carbon and water footprint at the end of the day earth does not remember what you wore but it always remembers how you treated itrefugee musicians create songs of hope not hatredricky has been working closely with the un in different capacities such as land ambassador for the united nations convention to combat desertification unccd and goodwill ambassador