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A war of words has broken out between the composers and singers of ‘Enjoy Enjaami’. It all began when rapper Arivu was not properly credited after the song was performed by singers Dhee and Kidakuzhi Mariyammal at the opening ceremony of the 44th Chess Olympiad. Music director Santosh Narayanan was credited as the composer of the song, instead.
The exclusion of Arivu’s name from the credits was pointed out by many people on social media, causing Arivu to react to the whole controversy. On Sunday, he took to his Instagram page and wrote, “Composed, Written, sung & Performed Enjoy Enjaami. Nobody gave me a Tune, Melody or a Single word to write this one. Spent almost 6 months of sleepless and stressful nights and days for everything it is right now. No doubt it’s a great team work. No doubt it calls everyone together . But it doesn’t mean that’s not the history of Valliammal or the landless Tea plantation slave ancestors of mine . Every song of mine will be having the scarmark of this generational oppression. Like this Just One..(sic).”
In the light of Arivu’s statement, Santosh also released a letter explaining the whole creative process of how ‘Enjoy Enjaami’ came into being. While Arivu claimed that it took almost six months for him to write the song, Santosh has said that “The entire process of the ideation, composition, arrangement and recording the shoot version with all the lyrics of ‘Enjoy Enjaami’ was done in under 30 hours. As we had only a few hours to record ‘Enjoy Enjaami’ before the shoot, our process was swift, fun and spontaneous.”
Santhosh suggested that he was the one who came up with the phrase ‘Enjoy Enjaami’, around which Arivu built a narrative. He said that as per the norm in the global independent scene, he’s credited as the “producer” of the song. The term in India usually refers to those who invest money in creative work but are not part of the creative process.
“In December 2020, Dhee came up with the idea of creating a Tamil song which glorified our roots and celebrated nature. I then composed, arranged, programmed, recorded and co-sang ‘Enjoy Enjaami’,” he said.
Santhosh, meanwhile, distanced himself from the Chess Olympiad controversy, noting that he has always “created Arivu and Dhee without prejudice in all platforms under my control.” He also added that the revenues generated from the song were equally shared among the three of them.
This is not the first time, Arivu has found himself in the middle of such controversy. Earlier, a controversy broke out when Rolling Stone, in the light of the global success of ‘Enjoy Enjaami’ and ‘Neeye Oli’, honoured Dhee and Shan Vincent by putting them on its cover but not him.
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