THE INDIPOP TREND - DISCO GOES DESI

For ages, the film song ruled. Nothing else was audible. Then came Nazia, charioteered by Biddu, and Indian ears went into a pleasant madness. Literally, Disco Deewane. A whole genre was born

- BY SUHANI SINGH

You could say film music conceived its own alter ego, carried it in its womb, and it went on to have a life of its own—with a racing pulse, and a disco heartbeat. It was through the good offices of Zeenat Aman and Feroz Khan, in that order, that one London-based expat came together with another in perfect, peppy euphony—for the movie Qurbani. Nazia Hassan, with all the saltiness of Karachi’s air in her beaten-silver voice, was only 15. Biddu, the long-haired, leather-clad Coorgi, had already known global fame as a disco pioneer. ‘Aap Jaisa Koi’, their first outing, sizzled on the tawa like Bollywood music never quite had before: the words dusted with homemade spices, the vibe pure phone-returned, Nazia’s smoked vocal confetti gliding leisurely through sonic bubbles bursting out of Biddu’s lush, synth-based orchestration. India was bewitched. Enough for the duo to want to do the voodoo again—this time outside of a film. Result: a superbug of an album in Disco Deewane (1981). The same blend: long, salty glissandos laid on a red-hot, four-by-four disco grill. It came like arson on a whole subcontinent. Platinum, double platinum, copies getting pilfered from railway shipment depots. Amid such pleasant madness was Indian pop officially born. India’s music industry had for decades been a protectorate of its song-laden cinema. Only a few non-film niches survived on the edges: classical, devotional et al. “