Ekta Mohta

<hr>&nbsp;Most of rapper Badshah’s music plays during the world’s&nbsp;night shift. Between 11 pm and 1 am, on Fridays and&nbsp;Saturdays, in clubs and house parties, his lyrics fuel&nbsp;the bodies of millennials, making them groove, jump&nbsp;and forget everything except for the here and now.&nbsp;Since 2014, when Yo Yo Honey Singh exited stage left,&nbsp;Badshah, the understudy, has been the star.&nbsp;His biggest circle of fans includes everyone who’s heard his songs in Hindi&nbsp;films, such as ‘Saturday Saturday’ from Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania (2014),&nbsp;‘Abhi Toh Party Shuru Hui Hai’ from Khoobsurat (2014) and ‘Chull’ from Kapoor&nbsp;&amp; Sons (2016). The second biggest circle has also heard his independent releases,&nbsp;such as ‘DJ Waley Babu’. Finally, the third biggest circle is made up those who’ve&nbsp;followed his Punjabi work (‘Proper Patola’, ‘Wakhra Swag’), featuring singers&nbsp;such as Diljit Dosanjh, Gippy Grewal and others. Even this smallest of circles&nbsp;includes millions of people — he has more than 7 lakh followers on Instagram&nbsp;and nearly 2 lakh followers on Twitter. His Facebook page has been liked by 4.7&nbsp;million people. Most of his videos have crossed 10 million views on YouTube.&nbsp;He’s the only rapper who endorses brands (Tuborg, Hitachi and Yamaha).&nbsp;He’s the only non-actor in Dream Team, a&nbsp;concert tour featuring Katrina Kaif, Alia&nbsp;Bhatt and others. These days, Badshah sells&nbsp;out concert venues, fills nightclubs and gets&nbsp;every party going. It’s ironic, then, that he&nbsp;hates partying.&nbsp;The sight of Badshah’s girth,&nbsp;height and unsmiling face&nbsp;can break up bar fights, but&nbsp;when he genuinely smiles,&nbsp;he transforms into a sixfeet-&nbsp;tall teddy bear. He’s like one of those&nbsp;big, imposing men, who melt when they&nbsp;see puppies and tear up when they read&nbsp;Humans of New York.&nbsp;Like a “juicer-mixer-grinder”, Badshah,&nbsp;30, is a rapper-composer-lyricist. Most of his&nbsp;songs are collaborations, because he can’t sing.&nbsp;He’s completely untrained, and in many of his&nbsp;compositions, this shows. “I’ve never had any&nbsp;training in any musical instrument, vocals or&nbsp;sound engineering,” Badshah confesses. “I’m&nbsp;completely self-taught. To this day, whenever&nbsp;I get time, I sit on YouTube and vlogs. Because&nbsp;of this, there’s this fear, this complex, that I&nbsp;have to work extra hard.”&nbsp;The magic in Badshah’s songs happens&nbsp;in the writing. He rhymes Raveena Tandon&nbsp;with London; he talks of women who give&nbsp;their BB pins but not their numbers; he&nbsp;encourages women to dance so hard they&nbsp;break their sandals, to party so fearlessly&nbsp;that the minister-friend has to be called. His&nbsp;observations of this tribe — the kids who&nbsp;want complimentary shots and entry into&nbsp;VIP zones, who lust for Guccis and BMWs&nbsp;— are all on fleek. “The good thing about my&nbsp;songs is that anyone who hears them thinks&nbsp;either I want to do this or I am like this. I’m&nbsp;not the guy who makes the best music. I’m&nbsp;not a singer. I cannot fall back on melodies. I&nbsp;don’t have sur. I just have my word play. So, I&nbsp;have to be the best at it.”&nbsp;Like a doctor who doesn’t go for morning&nbsp;walks, Badshah doesn’t enjoy going to&nbsp;nightclubs. “People in India don’t come to&nbsp;listen to music in clubs. More fights end up&nbsp;happening. I find it weird with so many people&nbsp;around. I’ll be very honest, whenever I go to a&nbsp;club, I’m looking for inspiration; I’m working.&nbsp;I dance only at weddings, where I’m not [paid&nbsp;to be] performing at, where my cousins are.&nbsp;They know me. They know Aditya, so it’s cool.”&nbsp;Badshah’s original name is&nbsp;Aditya Singh. He’s floated&nbsp;three origin stories of his&nbsp;pen name; perhaps all three&nbsp;are true. He was called&nbsp;Prince as a kid; he’s a huge fan of Shah Rukh&nbsp;Khan (lovers of schlock will remember the&nbsp;Abbas-Mustan movie); and frenemy Honey&nbsp;Singh named him so in 2007.&nbsp;<img src="https://d12d6l12s3d372.cloudfront.net/LIVE_resized_800x533_0feb86b946.jpg">&nbsp;Aditya Singh grew up in the seams of&nbsp;Delhi, in Pitampura. Born to a Punjabi&nbsp;mother and a Haryanvi father, his family was&nbsp;solidly middle-class. His mother, Avinash&nbsp;Rani, was a teacher in Bal Bharati Public&nbsp;School, which he also attended. His father,&nbsp;Preet Pal, worked for Delhi Transco Limited&nbsp;(“basically, the electricity department”). He&nbsp;has a sister, Aparajita, four years younger to&nbsp;him, and a wife, Jasmine, who he met five&nbsp;years ago in Chandigarh. He studied to be a&nbsp;civil engineer and attended PEC University&nbsp;in Chandigarh. There’s no one in his family&nbsp;with a musical background, and the first&nbsp;rap he’d ever heard was in a Backstreet&nbsp;Boys song. “Today, I think it’s a sin to call&nbsp;that rap. But that was the first form of rap&nbsp;I’d heard — in ‘Get Down’. Then, one of my&nbsp;friends introduced me to Tupac [Shakur],&nbsp;which I couldn’t digest because it was too&nbsp;gangster for me. Then I was introduced to&nbsp;Eminem, who I connected with the most. It&nbsp;inspired me to write my own stories. About&nbsp;college, canteens, how bad the food was,&nbsp;about teachers, girls, break-ups. That’s when&nbsp;I realised that in all these topics, people&nbsp;only listen to songs about parties the most.&nbsp;Everyone wants to be happy, to stay happy.&nbsp;Hence, a lot of party songs.”&nbsp;Badshah started out with Honey Singh’s&nbsp;band, Mafia Mundeer, but the two parted&nbsp;ways in 2012 and have said unsavoury things&nbsp;about each other since. Badshah, much like&nbsp;Honey, has willed himself into fame. “You&nbsp;have to hustle. You have to survive. You&nbsp;cannot just give up on your dreams. That’s&nbsp;not what winners do. Don’t come up to me&nbsp;and tell me that the circumstances were not&nbsp;right. Or else, settle for the life that life has&nbsp;given you. A lot of parents from middle-class&nbsp;families in India would be uncomfortable&nbsp;that their only boy wants to be a rapper. My&nbsp;parents were really not friendly to the idea.&nbsp;Those were probably the lowest days of my&nbsp;life as an artist. But, there comes a point&nbsp;when your passion overpowers every other&nbsp;apprehension in your mind. I reached that&nbsp;point before giving up.”&nbsp;<img src="https://d12d6l12s3d372.cloudfront.net/Getty_Images_464500182_Resized_800x533_ad788f6614.jpg">&nbsp;Badshah might never have been heard&nbsp;outside of Punjab, Delhi and Canada if not&nbsp;for a VIP invite from Bollywood. “Shashank&nbsp;[Khaitan, director] was partying in&nbsp;Chandigarh while shooting Humpty and&nbsp;he heard ‘Saturday Saturday’ in one of the&nbsp;clubs. He went to Karan [Johar] and said, ‘I&nbsp;want this song.’ Karan and Sony Music have&nbsp;shared a warm relationship since the days of&nbsp;Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Luckily, the song was&nbsp;already with Sony Music, so they said, ‘We’ll&nbsp;hook you up.’ It didn’t give me visibility, but&nbsp;it opened a lot of doors for me. The visibility,&nbsp;when they recognise you, came with ‘Abhi&nbsp;Toh Party’. That year there was a list of top&nbsp;ten party songs, and the first was ‘Abhi Toh&nbsp;Party’ and the third was ‘Saturday Saturday’.&nbsp;It was a huge achievement for me.”&nbsp;Bollywood’s job after buying&nbsp;a Badshah song is to class it&nbsp;up. The original ‘Chull’ has&nbsp;a line that goes, “Chadh ke&nbsp;tere pe karoon ghudsawari,&nbsp;chance jo ek mil jaaye,” which was mercifully&nbsp;removed. When Disney India was looking for&nbsp;a party song for Khoobsurat, they were clear&nbsp;it had to appeal to families. In some of his rap,&nbsp;Badshah has sneaked in chutiya (‘Inception’)&nbsp;and a muted gaand (‘Baatcheet’), but he has&nbsp;steered away from sleaze because even eightyear-&nbsp;olds listen to his music. “My lyrics are&nbsp;not derogatory; it’s just storytelling. The fact&nbsp;that girls like my songs a lot more than the&nbsp;boys shows that.”&nbsp;Not that Bollywood always does a good&nbsp;job; there’s plenty of WTFness in some of&nbsp;the videos. In ‘Akkad Bakkad’ from Sanam&nbsp;Re, the director, Divya Kumar Khosla,&nbsp;dons a sequined dress and starts dancing&nbsp;in the song. In ‘Aaj Raat Ka Scene’ from&nbsp;Jazbaa, a 30-year-old model is singing about&nbsp;upcoming exams. And, it’s unclear why he’s&nbsp;rapping in Sultan’s ‘Baby Ko Bass Pasand&nbsp;Hai’. “I don’t know what they’re thinking&nbsp;when they include a small portion of rap in&nbsp;the song. I don’t know what good it does to&nbsp;the song. Obviously, the demand for rap has&nbsp;increased, but they’re killing the genre in a&nbsp;bad way,” he says.&nbsp;<div id="gallery-1"><figure>&nbsp;			<div>&nbsp;				<a href="https://www.mansworldindia.com/entertainment/music/three-chartbusting-tracks-down-saturday-saturday-dj-waley-babu-and-chull-rapper-badshahs-party-has-just-begun/attachment/461376-alia-sid/"><img src="https://d12d6l12s3d372.cloudfront.net/461376_alia_sid_360x206_6fb19fa3f0.jpg"></a>&nbsp;			</div></figure><figure>&nbsp;			<div>&nbsp;				<a href="https://www.mansworldindia.com/entertainment/music/three-chartbusting-tracks-down-saturday-saturday-dj-waley-babu-and-chull-rapper-badshahs-party-has-just-begun/attachment/av-toh-party_sk_0/"><img src="https://d12d6l12s3d372.cloudfront.net/av_toh_party_sk_0_215x240_dab4eb4e7d.jpg"></a>&nbsp;			</div></figure>&nbsp;		</div>&nbsp;Much like female actors in Hindi films,&nbsp;most singers and rappers have short shelf&nbsp;lives. But, till Badshah’s around, at least&nbsp;there’ll be some wit in our songs. The best&nbsp;example of this is ‘Saturday Saturday’, in&nbsp;which a line goes: “Kehti hai woh student hai,&nbsp;but I doubt.” Badshah says, “In Chandigarh,&nbsp;girls who are working in BPOs still consider&nbsp;themselves students, but the way they’re&nbsp;spending money, I don’t think they’re&nbsp;students. It’s probably a way of hiding their&nbsp;age.” Despite his king-sized lifestyle now, he’s&nbsp;disciplined about his gift. “I write every day. I&nbsp;have seven to eight phones that are damaged,&nbsp;but I’ve kept them because they have stuff&nbsp;written in them. I do my homework. I ask kids&nbsp;to teach me what’s happening; to know the&nbsp;slang they’re using; to learn the words that&nbsp;excite them. I sit with a lot of people and just&nbsp;absorb and observe. Keep your ears open. I’m&nbsp;even going to mention this interview in one&nbsp;of my songs.” He isn’t kidding. He’s already&nbsp;rapped about reporters who have badgered&nbsp;him about Honey Singh in ‘Baatcheet’.&nbsp;In Badshah’s world, the vain, the beautiful,&nbsp;the young, the restless, the jealous and the&nbsp;greedy get equal treatment: a few smart lines&nbsp;that cut us down to size, and yet make our&nbsp;feet move.

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Since 2014, when Yo Yo Honey Singh exited stage left, Badshah, the understudy, has been the star.