Wednesday, September 26, 2007

"Shakalaka Baby" Chinese version by Kelly Poon and AR Rahman connection

Now this is great...to be more specific, a great Victory for all the proud members of "arrahmanfans" yahoogroups...We all know how most of our music directors, with very few exceptions, shamelessly indulge in the act of plagiarism and pretend as if they have no clue about it. But very rarely we come across a news where our music is either used or copied outside of India. Most of the times they credit the music to whomever it belongs. But imagine what would happen if they failed to. One such incident happened just a week ago.

A Chinese song named "Shakalaka Baby" sung by Singaporean singer Kelly Poon appeared on the Youtube last week. Name sounds familiar right. Well you'll be surprised to know that even the song sounded very familiar. Infact it was the same song we heard in Mudhalvan / Nayak and also in the smash-hit musical "Bombay Dreams" by AR Rahman. Here's the youtube video-

Everyone wondered who was this Kelly Poon and whats she got to do with Bombay Dreams. How could she sing the same song in Chinese ? The video did not credit AR Rahman as the original composer. So did she get rights from ARR ?? Does ARR know about this ? The song was also playing on the Singapore Chinese radio station yes99.3fm and her fans were raving abt the it.

As a loyal fan of AR Rahman, I did my part in going to youtube and other forums where discussion about this song was going on, and put comments that this was ARR's song and should be credited to him. Many members of arrahmanfans group did the same. And finally yesterday I came to know that a member of the same group, Vijay forwarded all the emails to ARR and ARR's legal advisors and finally Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Really Useful Group" took it up to Universal Music who are releasing the Kelly Poon album. Universal's contention is that they will include credits to ARR in the album, which only releases on Sep 28. They claim that the video and song on air in Singapore is only a promotional release. However, after this notice was sent, the artist has now credited A R Rahman by means of a small wording at the bottom of her MTV Asia music video, which means they sure did hear us.

Should we be ecstatic and overjoyed ? Well NO !!! considering the fact that hundreds of songs get copied from every part of the world and become a craze here, we can forgive them for a one time mistake.
But should we be happy ? Ofcourse YES !! because we, Rahmaniacs, always proud of whatever ARR does, have for atleast one time made him feel proud of us, by creating awareness about a probable plagiarism act and stopping it.

Keep going Rahman, there are many more countries which you still have left to cast your spell.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

come on yaar.. its most common in te music field.. if we keep looking in that way most of our music directors would end up putting credits to many other people..

Anonymous said...

Come on Guys...
As if Indian composers are angels!!!
Go and visit the following link to know how many songs were copied by Indian Music Directors :)
http://www.tfmpage.com/copied/

Anonymous said...

AR doesn't copies. He may derive few sounds or music. Becos Western Music base has Rock, Pop , etc to which they have to add cosmetics. But there are directors in Tamil Nadu who copy AR Rehman who is belonging to the same Tamil Film Industry. I have given an Example Below:

Bheema Songs - Resembles Many of the Previous Releases......

Rangu Rangama,
BGM - Macarena Macarena (Kushi) , Veerapandi Kotayilae (Thiruda Thiruda)
Tune - Veerapandi Kotayilae (Thiruda Thiruda)

SiruParvaiyalae
BGM - Vaaji Vaaji (Sivaji)
Tune - Vaaji Vaaji i.e.,Ambal Ambal Song (Sivaji)

Enadhuriyae
BGM - Mayiliragae (Anbae Aaruyirae)
Tune - Mayiliragae (Anbae Aaruyirae)

Mudhal Mazhai
BGM - Kannerae(Uyirae)
BGM - Mudhal Mudhalai(Lesa Lesa)

Orumugamo
BGM - The Boss, Oru Koodai (Sivaji)
BGM - Koncham Nilavu (Thiruda Thiruda)

Ragasiva Kanavugal
BGM - Thigu Thigu(Anbae Aaruyirae)
Tune - Thigu Thigu(Anbae Aaruyirae)
BGM - Nenjinilae (Uyirae)
BGM - Semari Aadu (Old Song)
BGM - Vaarayo Thozhi (Old Song)
Also Resembles Mohan Songs - Kavidai Paadu(Thendralae Ennai Thodu) at the end

Still more resemblance but unable to recall those songs.....

Anonymous said...

people dont worry abt anything coz this singer has taken permission from universal music and also from AR rahman ,then only she used this tune.

Anonymous said...

Hello Rahmaniac,

Shakkalakka baby itself is inspired or(he used loops created by someone) from Flight IC 408 | Aint talkin bout dub...

the loop only makes the song sound good...