Rap is back and like how, with the smashing success of Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy. And singer Hard Kaur is supremely pleased. “I think it was great to see a Bollywood movie on hip hop. However, we have to still keep the movement of creating a good song going as we have been doing before the movie happened, and move further to create major platforms for the survival of the hip hop culture,” says Hard in her signature candid style.
Going places But after the smashing success of countless songs in Bollywood, Telugu, Punjabi films, including chartbusters like Ek Glassy, Paisa Phek, Move your Body, Laung da Lashkara…. why has Hard moved away from playback? “Honestly, I was unhappy with the way the art, music and us artistes were being treated. It was just recapitulation, with songs turning into remakes, remakes, remakes…. After the success of “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ganapathi” from the movie ABCD, I thought we would start experimenting on another level. I am not blaming the music directors, lyricists, singers… as when you are being told what to make (because that is what sets the money flowing in), people are compelled to give in, and you simply cannot blame them.
As for me, I realised that I simply had to let go.” Hard has funnelled her creative energies into her latest baby, The Private Album, that has just released, to bring with it the single, Poison. The sound and lyrics melt together around the theme of life, passion, falling in love and heartache, joy, sex and pain…. a realm of feelings all of us go through at different points in our lives. Unveiling the dark side “Poison is about a dark side of getting into a relationship that you know you what what you want, freedom to be who you want to be and be treated with dignity as a human and that is the right of every individual by birth,” she says. “ “I am elated, proud and just happy for this song. This is truly a celebration of freedom.
Shilpi Madan for Sunday Herald