Singer Sonu Nigam says that when he was making his viral six-minute video The Roadside Ustaad, he sang for an hour at each location he was set up for in Mumbai.
In the video, Nigam is dressed as an old man in shoddy clothes and sings with a harmonium on the streets of Mumbai.
About people’s reactions, Nigam said: “They didn’t recognise my voice. They liked my voice. That was the good part that I could actually, out of nowhere, attract them through my voice. I was dreading the fact that these people [might] recognise me; that would be an embarrassment for me. There was no one around me, no bodyguards, no team, no managers.
“What you guys saw, was a very short clip. At every spot, I sang for one hour each. One hour behind Chandan [theatre], then one hour in front of Chandan, one hour at Four Bungalows [area in Mumbai]. So, it wasn’t easy, sitting in the sun, in the dust. I sang a varied range of songs; you just heard two. I might have sung at least 25 songs. I worked that hard, that’s why so many people joined in,” Nigam added.
The video has gone viral on social media, and had been viewed 3.3 million times on YouTube in less than a week’s time. The video is a marketing feature for Nigam’s upcoming single, Crazy Dil, which will be launched on Tuesday.
“We had no idea that people would like it so much and make it so huge. From where all I’ve received calls, they gave me good vibrations, they told me that they were crying, they couldn’t believe that I did this,” Nigam said.
About what people can learn from the video, he said: “What [teaching] can we give others? For me, it was my own learning. It’s the same me, it’s the same voice, the only difference is of the clothes, where I’m singing, and how I’m looking. A man sitting alone and without inviting anyone, we wanted to know how would that experience be.”
