Celebrating the recent success of his song Kala Chashma, Punjabi rapper Indeep Bakshi caught up with InUth to share his future plans. In a candid chat, he spoke about the trend of remixes, the competition in the industry and his bond with his contemporaries. An architect by profession, Bakshi shared how Saturday Saturday’s success changed his future plans.
“Basically, Saturday Saturday was my debut song and I wasn’t aware that Dharma Productions would pick it up. The song was written and shot in a fun way. Badshah did the rap for the song and the Dharma released it. After that song, expectations were very high. I learned production and the ability to reproduce what is in my mind for the audience,” he said.
As to how he came up with the track Kala Chashma, Bakshi shared, “While performing on stage, I didn’t have many original tracks to perform on. So I started remixing old songs such as Gora Rang and Kala Chashma, among others. Dharma Productions and Zee Music liked the songs. I really appreciate Anurag Bedi sir of Zee Music. He called up and said that we are using your song in the movie. The rap that I had already done for my album, Billionaire, for Sony Music was used. And just like that, Kala Chashma was released.”
As an artist, what is your take on remixes being the new trend in Bollywood?
“As an artist, I think that doing a remake of an old song is very tough. The song that is already a hit and our seniors have worked on it, it is difficult to do justice to do their creation while recreating it. Adding new lyrics is difficult because we youngsters understand it but seniors might not. For instance, my dad didn’t like it. He said you ruined a good song by adding your lyrics.”
“It has now become a profession and as artistes, we need to work as per the demand. Directors ask us to remake the songs. Recently, I did a remake of an old song and I hope that it does much better than what Kala Chashma did. It is an old song that I can’t reveal before the release. There’s a rat race in Bollywood where people are blindly following the trend of remixes. If one person does it, ten others will definitely do it. If I won’t do it then the producers will ask someone else to do it.”
Kala Chashma was a hit but Badshah’s rap of Humma Humma got mixed reactions. Your views on that?
“You can see my work in Saturday Saturday and Kala Chashma. Maybe, I didn’t work in Humma Humma, that’s why it didn’t work. I recently read what Badshah wrote that the song was made according to the producers’ demand. No one writes the rap for you, you write it yourself… He is doing good work. Dj Wale Babu was a great success among his other tracks.”
Badshah and you parted ways due to some controversy on the right attribution?
“Often artistes face a writer’s block. Even I have dealt with such situations in the past. We used to work together in the past and there must have been a time where he (Badshah) must have had a writer’s block. He would have read something that we wrote in the past and ended up using it without giving proper credits. I really appreciate Zee Music company for the right attribution of credits. They saw that the videos are copyright protected and when they got to know they updated the credits on YouTube. I don’t have any personal issues with Badshah.”
What about your bond with Raftaar?
“I really appreciate my brother Raftaar for always being there. When the song Saturday Saturday released, it was out of my passion that I used to sing. I wasn’t a producer. I did the song with Badshah and we had a lot of plans for our albums but then he got married and stopped responding to my calls. It was a crucial point of my career when this happened and I didn’t know what to do. After the success of Saturday, people were expecting a lot from me and I had invested a lot of money.”
“During that time, I met Raftaar at 24/7 and I told him about what all had happened. We bonded really well. We wrote one song in Shimla, one in Dehradun. The entire Billionaire album happened just like that I really appreciate him for being there at that time. If he needs me anytime, I’ll always be there. He has been doing really well and I wish him the best.”
Do you feel intimidated by the competition in the industry?
“I don’t think that the line I am in, there is any competition. I did Saturday Saturday and Kala Chashma and they both worked
well. The ones that one I am not doing are not doing so well. Rest, everyone is trying to do their best.”
