Anoop Desai: Going pro like UNC's Lawson and Hansbrough?

Until recently, Bill and Marcie Ferris were only remotely acquainted with American Idol, the wildly-popular television talent show.

Then one of their students became a contestant. Anoop Desai? Ring a bell?

Desai, a UNC Chapel Hill graduate student, is one of the 13 final contestants on the television show, which culls through a sea of wannabe singers to find true diamonds in the rough. If you win, you get a recording contract and get to bask in the adulation of bazillions of squealing, adolescent teens.

For Desai, a win in this high-profile competition would be a huge break. But he doesn't need it to be a success, argues Bill Ferris, a UNC professor who served as Desai's advisor when the Chapel Hill native was an undergraduate American Studies major studying folklore and banging out a 60-page honors thesis on the impact of barbecue on southern culture.

Ferris took some time to chat with the News & Observer about his impressions of one of his favorite students.

You’ve known Anoop for quite some time.

“I know him as well as any student I've worked with here. I've known him since he was a freshman. He's a very intelligent, outgoing person. Very sensitive and thoughtful in what he says and does in his classes. He stood out right away.”

How so?

“He was bright. He raised questions. He took two courses that I teach, one on southern music and the other on southern literature and the oral tradition. He's deeply involved in music both in his own performance and in his interest in southern music. We listened to and talked about every kind of music in the south. Then in the other course we read major southern writers. He's very interested in all of those worlds.”

His honor's thesis on southern barbecue is fascinating. He really delves deep into that, deeper than I think most people would ever do thinking about barbecue and its impact on southern culture. What contribution does that piece of work lend to society?

“It basically looks at barbecue not just as food but as a cultural window on how life in the south is lived. When you feel like you really want to connect to this community, you go to Allen & Son [in Chapel Hill]. You have pulled barbecue and sweet tea and a piece of pie and you think, okay, I have my feet on the ground. That's what Anoop's thesis was all about, the need a community has for barbecue as a way of grounding themselves as southerners.”

He ever sing in class?

“Oh yes. In fact I embarrassed him at one point, asked him if he would sing a piece, and he did. The class just went wild. He has a great voice. He was in the back row and just came out with this unbelievably beautiful song. Even before American Idol, he was a superstar on campus. Everyone knew his voice. This American Idol recognition has made him much more visible, but he was well-known and much beloved by the students and the faculty.”

What song did he sing in your class?

“I'm trying to remember. It was a Boyz II Men song, I think. That's a world I don't know as well as the blues and country. I think it was Boyz II Men song that the students wanted to sing.”

Is the person we see on TV the person you saw in class?

“Yeah, I think he is. He is not your kind of typical American Idol person. He's a very thoughtful, intelligent person who's very deferential to other people. He's not a brassy, in-your-face performer. I know the N&O published some suggestions encouraging him to be more aggressive and out there. But we recognize him totally when he's on stage in terms of his demeanor and style. He's the kind of person you feel very close to and you want to see him win.”

It sounds like you're saying he's in it less for the attention than for the fact that he's musical and likes to sing.

“That's it. He adores music. For his parents, they couldn't see that as a career path. My advice to my students is to follow your heart and things will work out. Anoop has clearly followed his heart. His performance at UNC as an undergraduate, the courses he took, all had music as the guiding road he was following.

I don't know exactly how American Idol began, but it's predictable because it's his passion. He really loves it. He’s really the perfect UNC story. His roots are in India. He's part of what we talk about as the global south, the new south. His coming to UNC has allowed him to flourish and find himself through the worlds of folklore and music, and put together what we might think of as a braided career that draws on strands of different interests.”

Do you think he'll end up with a music career? If he doesn't, do you expect him to become an academic?

“Most of the students who take folklore and American Studies are not really going to have an academic career. They may work with state arts councils, as some of our students do, as folklorists. They may go into museum work and they may eventually go into fields like law and business, but they do so with an appreciation of music and culture in the region.”

“I think he will [go into music]. Having gone this far, he has a profile and visibility that's unbelievable. I think the opportunities this competition has opened for him will give him significant options. He certainly has options now that he didn't have six months ago. Anoop is very intelligent. He could easily go to law school. He could do any career that he wants because he is able to do the academic work. He chose to do the [masters program] in folklore because that's really where his heart led him.”

I'm trying to picture an American Idol winner, or even finalist, do the show, get all the attention, and then come back to campus and squirrel himself away in a university library.

“I think it's possible. But my guess is that if he wins this, he'll have a musical career too attractive not to pursue. It's like Ty Lawson deciding to hang up basketball and go into law school. Or Tyler Hansbrough. That's the level on which Anoop is now standing, where these athletes stand in terms of options.”

So he's about to go pro?

“Exactly. It's nice to have a university where your athletes and your academics have the option of going pro, have the option of going other routes because they're smart. Most people who end up on American Idol don't have all those options. They're not at a university in a graduate school. That's what makes Anoop unique. The judges like him. They were aghast at how he was dressed, where he came from, and then the voice that came out.”

Did you watch the show before he was on it?

“We've watched it occasionally. We're not fans. I don't have time to watch much television. But as soon as Anoop was on it, we became fans.”

Have you voted?

“We have. My wife is better at it than I am, so she's voting for me.  You can vote early and vote often... They actually let you do that on this show.”