Bollywood singer Aakriti Kakkar, known for hits including ‘Saturday Saturday’ and ‘Iski Uski’, is back with her latest independent music track ‘Oh Jaanu’, released earlier this month. The song, a collaboration with singer Palash Sen, was born out of a casual jamming session in Mumbai with co-composer Shubham Moitra about a year and a half ago.
The song blends funk and disco, drawing from the sounds of the 1980s and 1990s. Kakkar, who describes herself as “extremely filmy by character”, has long been drawn to the nostalgia of the disco era and wanted to bring some of that charm to a contemporary audience. “I feel like I’m probably even born in the wrong era. I love the disco era,” she says. “I thought it would be fantastic to bring it back in the form of a song and make the current generation relive it in a cool way.”
The song also marks another collaboration with Sen, whom Kakkar has known for nearly two decades. She first met him while still in school, when she performed an opening act for his band Euphoria in Udaipur. When ‘Oh Jaanu’ took shape, Sen was the first person she thought of for the collaboration. Kakkar recorded her portions in Mumbai, while Sen recorded them at his Delhi studio. Kakkar was present for his recording session, where she says his energy and willingness to experiment shaped the collaboration. “Whatever he brought to the song was just asset on asset, every single line.”
The music video too carries the song’s nostalgic spirit, with changing costumes, hairstyles, body language and characters replacing the more conventional two-or-three-look format. Conceptualised and directed by Kakkar’s husband, Chirag Arora, the video draws on the visual language of older Bollywood and Hollywood music videos.
Life beyond Bollywood
Kakkar’s career has taken her across Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi music, and devotional singing. The pivot has been her decision to create music rather than wait for the next opportunity. As a playback singer, she says, getting a film song is rarely in the singer’s hands. “My job as a singer, my karma is to keep singing,” she says. “I cannot keep waiting.”
Yet her Bollywood songs continue to have a strong life on stage. “When I perform songs like ‘Saturday Saturday’, ‘Iski Uski’, or ‘Khudaya Khair’ on stage, people still go absolutely mental.”
Independent music, she acknowledges, comes without the marketing budgets available to film music. Still, she believes artists can find their audiences through digital platforms. “If people find you and like you, they will find your music no matter where you are. I’ve pledged, as an independent artist, to keep composing my own stuff,” she says.
The industry she entered in the early 2000s has also changed considerably. There was no Instagram or WhatsApp, and aspiring singers relied on demo CDs, studio visits and knocking on doors for opportunities. Today, singers can reach people directly through social media, while home studios have made recording more accessible. But Kakkar feels this accessibility has also changed expectations around singing. “Back then, you really had to be a really, really good one to get on the mic,” she says.
After more than two decades in music, Kakkar says she is less interested in perfection than in continuing to grow. She says the timid singer who moved from Delhi to Bombay 21 years ago is now more confident in her strengths. “I’m not perfect. I don’t even want to become perfect. I want to just keep getting better at what I’m doing,” she says.
After ‘Oh Jaanu’, Kakkar is preparing the third season of Big Band Theory, her live show that aims at reviving evergreen songs, which she calls her dream project. Scheduled to be released in October, the season will feature seven songs and several collaborations.