The Times when uae’s TalenT wenT Viral

Lead singer of a local Bollywood band ROOH, Anupam Nair joined hands with singer Shirin Latheef to participate in the Despacito fever with a creative Not Despacito version. What they essentially aimed to do was sing 24 songs in 8 different languages (Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Punjabi, Arabic, Persian, English and Spanish) against the popular Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee track. UAE-based Mahesh Raghavan’s (pic

above) studio is his iPad and his instrument is a mobile app called

GeoShred. As a Carnatic music fusion artist, he grabbed headlines internationally when he gave a makeover to popular theme music from The Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, F.R.I.E.N.D.S., Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Wars, and popular tracks such as Hello, Despacito and All of Me. In January 2016, three talented UAE-based musicians decided to ask

iPhone’s Siri a question, and then jammed to the response — beatboxed and sang a few Indian classical melodies when Siri obliged. Carl Frenais, the frontman of local band Carl

and the Reda Mafia, whose claim to fame was a viral video and the band’s opening set for Bon Jovi in Abu Dhabi in 2015, had a good time interacting with Siri in this way.