Goodbye Goldman

Add a few symphonies of synthesizer, a bit of electric guitar, and a bit of indie-folk; now jingle the concoction and voila! Pop music made its rocking entry in Bollywood movies with this Bling King!

Bling King of Pop, our beloved Bappi Da; Image Source: India Times

All that shines might not be gold, but Bappi Da and his persona was complete gold. It cannot be denied that without Bappi Da, Hindi cinema couldn’t have witnessed the disco revolution in Indian music. The melodious era of pop fusion dawned in Indian cinema when Mithun Da marked his presence in the film Disco Dancer, which is still afresh in the minds of music enthusiasts.

If you pause and pay attention to the musical remix renditions these days, they are all the melodies that put a fresh breath of air in the music industry when they were released originally, earlier. Bappi Da created a unique genre after getting a chance in the industry to showcase his talent.

Be it music production, singing or direction; he continued to streamline a unique position for the fun and excitement his numbers brought. Born as Alokesh Lahiri to parents, Aparesh Lahiri and Bansuri Lahiri, who were both singers provided Bappi with a conducive environment to cultivate his musical prodigy. He was their only child, and the initial guru who gave him the foundational singing and instrumental education to go ahead with music. At the young age of 3, he started playing the Tabla; a classical Indian percussion instrument.

Later after completing his music training, he started with a commercial movie of 1973, Nanha Shikari. He had moved to Bombay with his parents in hope of getting a break in the Hindi music industry. Success soon kissed him on the forehead, as proceeded to direct and sing-song in the next big project, Zakhmi. Singing Nightingale, Lata Mangeshkar Ji, Asha Bhonsle and, Kishore Kumar, to whom he was distantly related appreciated his singing and encouraged him to not lose hope.

Before disco, he had also produced some beautiful melodies and ghazals from the films, like B R Ishara’s Charitra, followed by Chalte Chalte, Aap ki Khatir, Suraksha, Waardat, Toote Khilone which had superhit songs!

What came as a boosting shot in the trajectory of his career was, the 1982 movie Disco Dancer starring Mithun Chakraborty as a disco dancer and initiating the beginning of the disco era. Bappi Lahiri’s music would cast a magic spell on his listeners and would force them to dance to the beats. Pop music was a new culture to the Indian fans, but it immediately caught their attention and presented Bappi Da with unimaginable fame. Movies like, Sharabi, Himmatwala, Saheb, Namak Halal, Guru, Gunday and The Dirty Picture had all one thing in common which added to their screen smashing hits, Bappi Da!

Bappi Lahiri looked up to S D Burman and Salil Chowdhury for inspiration to date. His gold-laden, baggy outfits became his signature style. To him Gold was God.

It came as a surprise to many of his biggest fans, that he had also lent his voice for dubbing for movies like Kingsman: The Golden Circle, and Moana!

Alas! It’s a great tragedy for Bollywood to lose another one of its shining stars.