When Dhurandhar franchise composer Shashwat Sachdev reached out to Copenhagen-based musician Navtej Singh Rehal to remake Aari Aari – the two-decade-old Punjabi dance track the latter had created as one half of Dutch band Bombay Rockers – Rehal, who hadn’t made any new music in a while, came on board without any real expectations. He certainly didn’t factor in the viral life that the new version of the song would quickly take on. Since its release last week, the song has attracted young listeners from Gen Z, who are embracing it and building connections on social media. The song has amassed three crore views in a week. “I am really digging the new version,” says 47-year-old Rahel in a Zoom conversation with The Indian Express.
When Dhurandhar released in December last year, Rahel watched it back home in Denmark and thought “the music was amazing”. He never contemplated being a part of the project. Three months on, Rahel is in Mumbai, where on Wednesday he attended the music launch of Dhurandhar: The Revenge, the second instalment of director Aditya Dhar’s politically charged two-part project, which has grossed over Rs 1,300 crore so far. He also performed the song with singers Imran Khan (Khan Saab), Sudhir Yaduvanshi and rapper Reble, with actor Ranveer Singh grooving to it at the event held at NESCO Centre in Mumbai’s Goregaon. “I realised how much I had missed this. It is a good time to be Bombay Rockers right now,” says Rahel, who recorded the song on March 5. It was released on March 12 alongside the trailer of Dhurandhar 2. “It is not just a song in the film. It is the title track. Shashwat, who is a technical genius, told me in the studio that Ari Ari has been the sound of Punjab for him. He had already produced the new track and I was blown away when I heard this new version,” says Rahel. He went back and forth with what to keep and what to let go.
Watch Aari Aari song from Dhurandhar 2:
Aari Aari originally came out in 2003, when the internet was slow and music in MTV was still intact. This is when music videos looped endlessly on television and physical CDs were still around. This is when indie music was still doing well and Ari Ari’s catchy tune, slick Punjabi lyrics, hip-hop beats and digital loops had a full life in India: in cars with woofers, college festivals, radio slots, late-night DJ sets, among others. Based in Denmark yet sonically tethered to South Asia, the duo with Rahel and Dutch music producer Thomas Sardorf created music together with their debut album Introducing (2003) going platinum five times. The other song in the album was Rock the Party, proved to be just as popular. “The song had people dancing in Chennai. Somehow it mainstreamed,” says Rahel.
Rahel was born and raised in Copenhagen but has roots that go back to Hoshiarpur in Punjab. His parents moved to Copenhagen in the 70s, a time when many from Punjab migrated to fill labour shortages in Europe. His father held a number of jobs and worked in factories to support the family in Denmark, which, unlike the UK or Canada, had a very small Indian community. Music for Rahel came from his mother, who wasn’t a singer but heard a lot of ghazals, especially by Jagjit Singh, and Punjabi folk music. His parents also bought him a mini-synthesiser. “I used to play that for hours,” says Rahel. There was also a culture of renting Bollywood films on VHS tapes every weekend, “And I grew up listening to the ghazals and folk alongside film music and a lot of hip hop and RnB. So it all got mixed up,” says Rahel, who at 13 had a job as a newspaper boy and saved up to get a bigger synthesiser.
While he got an engineering degree, he also kept producing music. “I pursued music for three years after college and had no success. I’d produce music for some local artistes but nothing much. I decided to go back to studies and continue with engineering,” says Rahel. But life had other plans. He was approached by Sardorf and Janus Barnewitz, who needed Punjabi singing in a song they were producing. Aari Aari was the first track they all ever produced and it was a huge hit.
This is also the time when Punjabi MC was pushing sound beyond its traditional roots and allowing Punjabi music to thrive in newer contexts. Aari Aari came riding high on that bandwagon. “Everything just blew up,” says Rahel.
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Sardorf parted ways with Bombay Rockers eight years ago for personal reasons, and Rahel is now the only one left in the band and performs with other musicians. He hadn’t been making much music in the past few years and was in “dad mode”. Even though a lot of artistes were reaching out, “But Dhurandhar has given me a push to get back up,” says Rahel.
At a time when Bollywood is turning to familiar tunes and hooks with glossier production amid a lack of original music, Rahel says that while he really enjoys some of the remakes, as an artiste he will always tilt towards original music. “Shashwat in Dhurandhar has managed a mix of both. In the film, the old tracks hit me as hard as the new ones,” says Rahel.
