Rafi magic stays alive through recreations

By IANS | Published: December 24, 2019 08:32 PM2019-12-24T20:32:55+5:302019-12-24T20:45:20+5:30

Legendary singer, the late Mohammed Rafi, had left us for his heavenly abode many years ago, but his soulful voice still resonates in the ears of people. In this era of recreations and remixes, a slew of singers have been keeping Rafi's magic alive by resinging his evergreen songs, adding a dash of EDM and trance music.

Rafi magic stays alive through recreations | Rafi magic stays alive through recreations

Rafi magic stays alive through recreations

Actor Kunal Kapoor's "Noblemen" is one of the latest films which saw the recreated version of Rafi's famous track "Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaye" from the late actor Guru Dutt's film "Pyaasa" .

The recreated version of the song is composed by Shri Sriram and KC Loy and sung by Suraj Jagan with lyrics by KC Loy.

According to Siddharth Anand Kumar, Vice President, Films and TV, Saregama, Rafi's song allowed them to give the classic a modern but relevant twist to the film.

Not only this, actor Anil Kapoor last year paid tribute to the iconic singer by reprising his hit song "Badan pe sitare" in the film "Fanney Khan". Singer Sonu Nigam, who is often called a clone of Rafi, lent his voice to the remixed version.

The new version had many tweaks to the lyrics of the original song. The word "aashiq" was replaced "fanney" in the second stanza.

Talking about Sonu's love for Rafi, the former considers the legend his "guru". And he was initially avoiding to recreate the song because he did not want to mess with it.

"I basically was avoiding doing it because I don't like to tamper with original songs anymore. I've done enough of versions in the past. And this was Rafi sahab's song. Who wants to mess with it? He is my guru, he is my musical father. But Anil Kapoorji insisted and he requested me to do it. He said he was playing an ardent follower of Rafi sahab in the film, and that's why he wanted me to give him my voice," Sonu had told .

"Fukrey Returns" also witnessed the recreation of Rafi's popular song "O meri mehbooba" from the 1977 film "Dharam Veer", featuring Dharmendra and Zeenat Aman.

Unfortunately, the remixed version did not go down well with the listeners, and they had slammed the singers of the new song Neha Kakkar and Yasser Desai for distorting the original. The song is composed by Prem and Hardeep.

Rafi's most romantic songs "Ye chaand sa roshan chehra" and "Gulabi aankhen" were also recreated in the film "Student Of The Year". The new versions were composed as disco-themed numbers by retaining only a few lined from the original lyrics. Both revamped versions of "Ye chaand sa roshan chehra" and "Gulabi aankhen" were composed by Vishal and Shekhar.

The popular music band SANAM, which is best known for singing the unplugged versions of classic renditions, tried their hand at recreating Rafi's "Gulabi aankhen".

The band tried to give a modern touch to the song. They shot the song at scenic Maldives, imparting cool romantic vibes through the new version.

SANAM's recreated version was loved by people a lot. The song's video has garnered over one hundred twenty-eight million views on YouTube till date.

The recreation of Rafi's "Gulabi aankhen" did not stop here. The song was recreated in the Sonakshi Sinha-starrer "Noor", too. The new version, titled "Gulabi 2.0", is recreated by Amaal Mallik and also sung by him along with Tulsi Kumar and Yash Narvekar. It is a peppy track in which Sonakshi is seen grooving to the tunes in a short pink dress.

While several singers have tried to recreate the hit old classics of Mohammed Rafi, many tried not to retouch them and kept the tracks in the iconic singer's original voice.

In the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer "Mohabbatein", for instance, some instrumental portion of Rafi's hit song "O haseena zulfon waali" was used at the end of "Aankhein khuli ho ya ho band", on which the veteran Helen danced along with SRK.

The title song of "An Evening In Paris" in Rafi's original voice was also in Karan Johar's Ranbir Kapoor-Anushka Sharma starrer "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil".

( With inputs from IANS )

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