Young, urban and soulful

Tanishk Bagchi is known as the prince of remakes in Bollywood. Now, in the non-film space, he is making a debut with an original track, Khudse Zyada. 

Releasing on August 21, the single also features Zara Khan — of Arjun Kapoor’s Aurangzeb (2013) fame — as a vocalist. After biggies like Dilbar (Satyameva Jayate), Aankh Maarey (Simmba) and more recently Saki Saki (Batla House), Tanishk thought now was the right time to drop a private track. He says, “Past four years have been extremely hectic with back-to-back film songs, with a blend of originals and remakes. It’s tougher to recreate because there’s always a comparison with the original, so, my complete focus was on the film front. However, I was also working on creating some stuff that I wanted to do in the independent space and that’s how Khudse Zyada happened.” He continues, “I’m glad I’ve collaborated with Zara; she has sung it phenomenally and also features alongside me in the video.” 

The Brit artiste, Zara, on the other hand, was working on some of her own stuff and happened to share it with Tanishk – whom she looks up to after her mother Salma Agha – for his opinion. “But I got the opportunity to collaborate with him and I don’t think I could have asked for a better start in the music industry,” she states, adding that working with the composer has been a breeze. “I have had among the best experiences just watching him make music from scratch all by himself. He’s really hard-working, so, as an artiste, it makes me feel happy to share the craft of music with him,” says the actor-singer for whom his Monobina (Gold, 2018) and Aankh Maarey are favourites by the composer. 

Tanishk says that he has tried to experiment and infuse his own style and flavour to the track. “It’s a young, happy, urban-sounding track but with depth in lyrics because I believe words are the soul to a melody. It’s important that listeners can connect to the tune and feel the song. It’s a fresh-sounding song,” says, he, adding that the idea was to keep it sonically as well as visually appealing. 

The composer says that this is just the beginning of non-film songs from him. “I have a few more in the pipeline and I’m equally excited about will come up after Khudse Zyada. Soon to be announced!” says he. Like Tanishk, Zara also plans to release more indie stuff. “I feel there’s so much more one can do as a singer and that front needs to be explored. It shouldn’t just be melodies from films. I have more releases coming up with the determination of changing the perspective of independent music,” says the artiste who also has movies in her kitty. “My single is also almost ready,” Zara concludes.