Hyderabad: Bollywood singers Mika Singh, Badshah, Kanika Kapoor and Akriti Kakar, along with DJ Chetas and DJ NYK made their first stop at Hyderabad for MTV Bollyland. While this is Badshah’s first visit to the city and Kanika’s third — the first being when she had performed for good friend Ram Charan at his engagement — Akriti and Mika are quite accustomed to Hyderabad’s crowd.
Mika passes the buck
Throughout the interview, Badshah was at the receiving end as Mika cleverly blamed him for everything, from his bachelorhood to not involving himself in fresh controversies.
When asked: “You were known to be the king of controversies, but there hasn’t been any for a long time…” Mika sportingly replied, “I think I should also give Badshah a chance.” He also kept dodging questions about when he would be getting married and instead chose to speak about his work.
The threat perception
With many actors turning singers, do the singers consider them as threats? “Not at all, in fact, actors should consider us as threats. They can’t give hits like we do,” says Mika. Kanika Kapoor, who shot to fame with Baby Doll, adds, “I don’t consider them as threats. If an actor can sing then he should do both acting and singing. But if they can’t sing then they shouldn’t be singing.”
The duo, however, agreed that actors do take a lot of credit for their work. For example, Lovely from Happy New Year is associated with Deepika Padukone and Baby Doll with Sunny Leone. Not many are aware of the actual voices behind the songs.
“A lot of people asked me if Sunny Leone sang Baby Doll. But at the end of the day it’s fine… actually I don’t mind… or maybe I don’t care as long as everyone is loving my songs,” says Kanika.
‘Live shows are best’
But Akriti Kakar, who sang Saturday Saturday, begs to differ. “Actors do take a lot of credit, which is a good thing. Half the people today do not buy music CDs and are not aware of who is singing what song. Live shows and concerts are the only platform where we artistes can connect with the audience and tell them that it’s us who had sung it and we also had a role play in the song.”
But neither Badshah nor Mika had any qualms about them not being given credit for their work.
The only point on which all of them agreed was that they all loved to perform at live concerts.
