Indian mashmaking
Mash-ups are a good way to go viral. Pawri Ho Rahi Hai is a prime example. But what does it take to make a career in this genre? A little shade, serious talent and at least a pinch of luck
It’s 8.30 am on a Friday and DJ Bapon is getting dressed for work. He opens the door to the family’s Kolkata apartment and excuses himself; minutes later, he returns fresh from a shower; then ducks into his roomturned-studio, and finally emerges in a shirt and trousers, ready for the bank he works at and for this interview.
It’s a small window into the world of Bengal’s cult mash-up artist. Online, he has over 500,000 social-media subscribers and followers. Offline, he spends most of his time as Anindya Chakraborty, employee with a nationalised bank in Salt Lake.
Fame hit him quickly, but the revenue hasn’t followed. His early mash-ups, Chete Chete Khabo (Horlicks Song) and Aaj Mongolbar, collectively racked up over 1.5 million Youtube views within two months of their release in 2017. Both were then taken down by Youtube for infringement of copyright. This is the story of the viral boom and gruelling bust of mash-up music, songs in which musicians combine two or more popular and musically aligned songs.
By digitally stitching together the vocals and instrumental tracks and adding their own touches (which can range from new overlaid beats to clips from news reels or fresh animation), what’s eventually served up becomes a sort of delectable musical khichdi for the masses. Recent hits have included Yashraj Mukhate’s Pawri Ho Rahi Hai, Kokila Ben (Rasode Me Kon Tha) and We Can See His Bum.
What makes a good mash-up? It usually begins with pop-culture inanities. What must follow are some shade or context, and a good beat, often paired with some serious musical talent.
We Can See His Bum, for instance, was inspired by words spoken by an outraged woman activist on a TV news show, following actor Ranveer Singh’s nude magazine photoshoot in July. The mash-up’s melody is addictive; the video, cleverly edited. Mukhate loops the audio motif of “Bum, bum, bum” all through. A gentle refrain adds, “We can see it too”, in the hilarious but melodic take. The 1.03-minute track has had 3.7 million views in three months on Youtube.
Pawri…, similarly, was inspired by an inane video posted by a young Pakistani influencer, pointing to her car and her get-together with friends. Pawri… has had 75 million views in a year. The 24-year-old Mukhate’s channel has 5 million subscribers.
Notes of chaos
The mash-up has been a popular tool in Bollywood since the 1990s, with medleys used to promote new films. In recent years, independent singers such as Vidya Vox, 32, with 7.6 million subscribers on Youtube, have made a career not of covers but of mash-ups that combine songs in English, Hindi and south Indian languages to create musical tracks that stand on their own.
It’s a quick career boost. “A popular mash-up might not earn money but it is a way to get professional concerts,” says Jacob aka Jakestrum Drums, a 22-year-old Delhi journalism student and mash-up artist. His mother suggested that he redirect his talent. Before his mash-ups, Jakestrum was a drummer with Delhi bands, a fan of Linkin Park. The rock accents are visible in the music and vocals he lends to his covers of songs such as Armaan Malik’s Pehla Pyaar, a lilting ballad from the 2019 film Kabir Singh.
Often no more than a minute long, mashups — a social-media-propelled, digital techdriven evolution of the medley, remix and DJ set — represent the zeitgeist of short attention spans and blink-and-you’ve-missed-it online scrolling algorithmic cultures. It also represents a democratised do-it-yourself approach to production, born in a cauldron of fuzzy creative appropriation sitting in a merciless minefield of copyright issues.
It’s a far cry from what is recognised as the first commercially released mash-up, the 1983 Do It Again Medley With Billie Jean, a seamless commingling of Michael Jackson’s latter song with the heady rhythm of Steely Dan’s Do It Again, executed by the Italian band Club House. By comparison, today’s medley artists are aiming for quick, short bursts of fame and remain caught in a mesh of ideas, originality, imitation and legalese.
Based on how much of the original audiovisual material is used, the copyright owner can claim all or part of the revenue from a mashup, or demand that it be taken down. Jakestrum says he faces copyright claims on about three of every five videos.
Bapon, as a result, remains frontman to the Bengali hard rock band Road Roller, though their videos get “no more than four or five thousand views” online. Today, he is late for the bank, the job that currently pays the bills. He grabs breakfast, waves goodbye to his parents and cycles away, after extending an invitation to Road Roller’s next gig.