Jay Sean's Bollywood tribute Nakhre sees him mimic Shah Rukh Khan

Jay Sean

A significant chunk of Jay Sean's fans will refer to his creations as comfort-music. His repertoire, carefully curated over two decades, has a track for every mood. While he attracted the eyeballs of music consumers on international shores with Down, fans in India, even to this day, will turn up the volume when Nachna tere naal (2003) hits the radio. Despite catering to distinct audiences, Sean says he learnt early on that "it is not possible to please the whole world". His artistic skills, coupled with a business acumen that taught him to appropriately zero in on his target audience, has enabled him to acquire the success that he has.

"When you make music for other people, [it is important to] cater to their taste. The idea is to evolve with time, and know how to move your audience with you," he says.

Jay Sean

The Brit musician, who kicked off his career with Rishi Rich's Nachna tere naal, has made frequent appearances in Indian publications and in radio, in the last few months. His recent offerings too have been moulded to grab the attention of fans in this part of the world. Case in point being Nakhre, a tribute to Bollywood that sees an animated Sean mimic Bollywood's badshah, Shah Rukh Khan. It marks yet another collaboration with Rishi Rich.

"The song includes the flute [section] in Baazigar's Tere chehre pe. Since the music video had to be shot in the pandemic, we decided to use animation to make the video," says Sean of the track that punctuates scenes of Khan's films with pictures of Kajol.

Rishi Rich. Pics/Instagram

Sean and Rich grew up on a healthy appetite of Bollywood films. "We have been fans of Aashiqui and Baazigar, and the films' music. I thought it would be a good idea to have Jay [emulate]SRK and [recreate] the iconic scenes of DDLJ, RaOne and Kuch Kuch [Hota Hai] to evoke a sense of nostalgia," says Rich, who shifted base from London to Mumbai four years ago after a collaborative project with Mohit Suri exposed him to the promising opportunities India had to offer. "I loved the vibe here. I was inspired and decided to stay and work on films like Gully Boy and Pal Pal [Dil Ke Paas]. A music producer can work anywhere. Here, I have my own studio, and also [get the chance to] express my sounds [as desired]," says Rich.

The web platform, like several others, have opened doors for artistes. Rich says platforms like Triller, on which Nakhre was exclusively released, enables them to gauge audience reaction, instead of ponder over the reception of a song consumed independently.

His most recent work is the Netflix documentary, Bad Boy Billionaires. Sean, on the other hand, responds to our question of a probable upcoming mixtape by confirming that the third edition of his acclaimed album, Mistress, could be in the pipeline. "RnB has always been dear to me. I have a few songs that could be on it. This is among the projects that are very important, for me."

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