Anu Malik ‘happy’ that his old hits match this rapper’s moves

Hollywood actor Donald Glover is now a fairly well-known name in India, thanks to his role as Lando Calrissian in Solo: The Star Wars Story. But aside from that, he is grabbing eyeballs with the parodies of his music video, This Is America. The actor, under his stage name Childish Gambino, released that hip-hop track on May 8, poking fun at the American entertainment industry. And since then, users in India have been flooding the web with parodies — these have bits of the original video, woven with a Bollywood song playing in the background, the Hindi number seamlessly synced with Glover’s dance moves.

Songs thus used include My Name is Lakhan (from Ram Lakhan, 1989), Chale Jaise Hawayein (from Main Hoon Na, 2004), and Banda Yeh Bindass Hai (from Aks, 2001). In each case, Glover swings to these numbers as if the songs were picturised on him.

The song from Aks is the latest parody out there, and composer Anu Malik, who was also the music director for Main Hoon Na, feels “happy” that his songs fit so well with Glover’s dance moves, and that web users have picked them. He says, “It shows that the music I created so many years ago is still popular and people still love listening to those songs. I’m both happy and honoured that people have used some of my songs for these videos, and the music goes well with the moves as well! My daughter, Anmol, showed me one of the videos. I think it was the Main Hoon Na song. It looks terrific, yaar!”

Sorav Jain, a social media marketing expert, says, “When it comes to trends on social media, one thing goes viral and others try to create content around that.” That’s what happened, he says, when the first Donald Glover parody “spread like wildfire”.

IN EACH PARODY VIDEO, ACTORRAPPER DONALD GLOVER SWINGS TO THE HINDI NUMBERS AS IF THE SONGS WERE PICTURISED ON HIM

A scene from the video This Is America, by Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino