Singer Dhvani Bhanushali’s new single, Leja Re — released by T-Series on November 23 — has crossed 25 million views on YouTube and is presently ruling the charts as one of the most popular romantic tracks of the season. A recreation of Shreya Ghosal’s original song of the same, Leja Re is composed by Tanishk Bagchi and directed by Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru. Earlier this year, Dhvani had delivered the hit remix, Dilbar Dilbar, from the John Abraham-starrer film, Satyameva Jayate.
Hailing from Mumbai, the 20-year-old YouTube sensation is determined to space out her playback career with independent music and singles. “The scenario is changing a lot. Independent music and singles are getting as much popularity and appreciation as film music. I always wanted to be a popstar like Beyonce, so after the success of Dilbar Dilbar, I just wanted to go ahead and do my own single.
Leja Re, thankfully, quite met my vibe. I am happy people have received it positively. When you recreate a song, people always have qualms like, ‘Why are they doing it’ or ‘Don’t touch it!’ However, in our case, the song has done really well,” Bhanushali said, pointing out the success of Guru Randhawa as an example of an independent musician making it big in Bollywood.
A choir singer in her school days, Bhanushali was goaded by singer-composer Himesh Reshammiya to pursue music more seriously. “Two years after finishing my tenth grade, I met Himesh Sir. He told me I had a good voice. He motivated me to attain formal training, so I started going to his studio and recording. That’s when I got really serious about turning my passion into my profession.”
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