‘I EDITED VIDEOS BY GOOGLING’

Before she became a bona fide Bollywood hitmaker, singer Shirley Setia made cover versions of Hindi chartbusters, and shot her own videos, too

Singer Shirley Setia burst on to the Bollywood music scene with the chartbuster, Disco Disco, for the film A Gentleman (2017), but she started off her journey on YouTube. Shirley was famous for her covers of hit songs such as Hangover (Kick, 2014), Galliyan (Ek Villain, 2014), and Sanam Re (Sanam Re, 2016).

The 22-year-old New Zealand-born singer recalls the challenges she had to face when she took the decision to move to India, right after her graduation.

“It has been absolutely challenging over the years. I was not doing just music videos, but also studying on the side.

I also used to work as a radio jockey on the weekends.

I learnt how to make my own YouTube videos. I had no team then — no editor, no one to shoot. I had to learn all on my own, by Googling ‘How to edit videos!’”

Was it easy for her to grasp the Hindi diction, given her Kiwi background? “Even now, there are some problems with the pronunciation.

I had to dub for a Punjabi song recently, so I did face some issues here and there. But, I’ve been speaking in Hindi since childhood, and also that radio station I worked at was Hindi, so that helped me,” says Shirley, who recently came out with a single with singer Atif Aslam.

While she has a huge fan following on social media, there’s also the bad side: trolls. Asked how she deals with them, Shirley says, “You have to take it in your stride and move on... The downside is the sadness you face after reading everything negative.

You think, ‘Yeh kyun itna bura bol rahe hain mere baare mein?’ Those things are mentally challenging, but I’m not gonna give up.”