Udta Punjab’s story is told through music: Amit Trivedi

Trivedi, 37, who first shot to fame with critically acclaimed “Dev D”, says in “Udta Punjab” music plays the key role as it helps to move the story further.

“He is a drug addict. He is high on cocaine everytime. He is loud, edgy and trippy guy. The entire characterisation of Tommy Singh had to be done through music. That’s why the music is trippy, edgy, dark, young and cool.”

Similar to his previous albums, the film also has an influence of Punjabi folk in its songs including “Chitta Ve”, “Da Da Dasse” and “Ikk Kudi”.

“Folk music is the essence of our country. This music is one of the assets for us. It’s our responsibility to revive them and present them in a new way. I have always been fascinated by the folk of our country.”

Tommy’s voices — Babu Haabi, Shahid Mallya and Bhanu Prtap — in the film have already struck the right chord with the listeners.

“Abhishek and I wanted Shahid (Kapoor) to do it but he was not up for singing. The idea was to find someone who can sing and rap. But we could not find anyone.

“So, we zeroed in on Shahid Mallya, who is the singing voice of Shahid and Babu Haabi is the rap voice. There are other singers also like Diljit Dosanjh and Kanika Kapoor. Vishal (Dadlani) and I also sang a song together.”

Trivedi says composing music for the film was a big task.

“The challenge was to make the music of the movie commercially vible. We had to keep everything in mind before recoding a song. It was quite difficult for me.”

His next projects are Habib Faisal movie and Aamir Khan’s production tentatively titled “Secret Superstar”.