Bappi Lahiri: The Ultimate Showman

Bappi Lahiri (1952-2022) or Bappi Da, as he was known to everyone, stayed musically ahead of the curve by bringing new trends to Bollywood. He introduced disco and electro pop beats to Hindi music, giving us songs that we are dancing to till date. And to have done this when composers didn’t even have the luxury of platforms like YouTube and Spotify, which make international music easily accessible, is all the more impressive. He heard music from across the world and invested time to be in sync with what the world was doing. As much as the West inspired him, his music was equally commercial Bollywood. Just listen to ‘Aaj Rapat Jaayen To’ from Namak Halal. Coming from a musical family from West Bengal, there’s a lot of Bengali folk influence in his music too.

He was an adept tabla player himself and was open to different kinds of voices and instruments. Nowadays, when a singer’s career takes off, composers rush to him or her. Bappi Da wasn’t like that. He would seek out new singers, ones who hadn’t necessarily made a name for themselves till then. Every singer he introduced had a unique voice. He created beautiful tunes with just the right voices to bring them to life, like Salma Agha in ‘Jhoom Jhoom Jhoom Baba’ (Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki). Recently, when I heard the song play out to the trailer of the Hollywood film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, I felt it could have easily been mistaken for a contemporary track, like a Dua Lipa song. This was no remix or cover and it still sounded so fresh. I’m sure that there was a dancer hidden inside Bappi da. How else could someone have created so many foot-tapping melodies and get the groove right every time?