‘Auto-tune doesn’t matter, entertainment does!’

Bollywood playback singer Mika Singh was in the city to perform on Friday. In a tête-à-tête with Hyderabad Hans, the singer talked about contemporary music, the use of auto-tune and why entertainment is all that matters

After a successful pilot version last year, Bollyland, a BDM (Bollywood Dance Music) gig, was held on Friday night at Novotel, HICC. The gig, which aimed to fuse Bollywood and EDM, had renowned artistes from Bollywood like Mika Singh, Kanika Kapoor and DJ Chetas, who awed Hyderabadis.

A few moments before the gig, we caught up with Mika Singh to get a sneak-peek into how the industry works, the changing phase and importance of music in Indian movies besides tracing his journey of over two decades in the Hindi film industry.

The city has been significant for Mika as he had performed here in the initial stages of his career. “I have frequently visited Hyderabad and so I have developed an emotional connect with the people here,” Mika explained.

With the apparent change in the music scenario, we asked him whether getting into the industry was tougher now than it was before. Mika said that Bollywood was good at assimilating talent. “If the music you compose and your voice is a hit with the people, Bollywood won’t take much time to take you in,” he said.

While technology has come in handy for playback singers, with voice modulation and auto-tune, the industry seems to be overdoing it. Mika himself sounds different on tape and on stage. Well, the industry seems to be overdoing the “touch up”, which is affecting the quality of music. Mika sugar coats this by saying, “We have to keep changing our music with time. Of course, the quality of music is affected. But at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if we are touching up and using auto-tune. What matters is that the music is well received and whether is a hit with the people or not.”

Talking about Punjabi music gelling with Bollywood, the “Mast Kalandar” singer says, “Punjabi has been the best thing to happen to Bollywood since decades. Even today we see that most Punjabi tracks and Bhangra beats are mixed with Bolly tracks in parties and the result is music that makes you want to get up and dance.”

Mika started his career in 1998 by producing albums and later took to Bollywood. He credits Bollywood for being an impeccable launch pad for aspiring playback singers besides providing a pool of opportunities for them.

Commenting on newbies who shoot to fame and eventually turn out to be just another one-hit wonder, he says, “We often see people coming in like a storm and then disappearing in no time. It is easy to get famous, but consistency is the key. People will love you till the day you entertain them with new songs. The day you reduce your frequency, your career begins to spiral downwards.”