What to expect from ‘Coke Studio’ in India

Will the Indian counterpart of the hit music show make the cut?

KARACHI:

This summer is ablaze with “Coke Studio” craze — from the controversies to artists, everything is part of the daily debate now. “Coke Studio” India is the next big thing that music loving masses would be looking forward to, as it kicks off on MTV India on June 17.

The show will be produced by Leslie Lewis, and the list of artists revealed so far includes some big names like Shaan, Shankar Mahadevan, KK and of course, Shafqat Amanat Ali.

Before we go into the details of the Indian installment of the show, and what can be expected from the front man of Colonial Cousins, let’s hear it from the man who brought “Coke Studio” to Pakistan and was initially asked to produce it in India as well.

“They approached me to produce ‘Coke Studio’ over there but it was not physically possible for me. “We had a lot of discussions, and I was even asked to come there to see how it is, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even do the consultancy because it wasn’t physically possible for me. The offer was an honour for me, they were very sweet about it,” Rohail Hyatt, the producer of “Coke Studio” in Pakistan told The Express Tribune.

Rohail had his preferences and chose not to be a part of it, but the bigger question was: who fills in for him? Ventures like “Coke Studio” are as good as the men behind them, and Leslie Lewis isn’t the best of choices, and that too in a place as musically rich as India.

If we flip through the pages of history to the initial days of cable television in Pakistan, Colonial Cousins may ring a bell. You may remember the band comprising of two middle-aged men dressed up in beads and sherwanis, sounding pathetic musically. The man behind the music of that band was Leslie Lewis, and the vocals (which were the only worthwhile part about their music) were done by the legendary Hariharan.

Lewis was known for creating fusion music back then, and his version of fusion meant combining two different languages and fusing the eastern and western melodies. He eventually ended up making jingles, and to one’s surprise, is now all set to produce “Coke Studio” in India. But the question is, why not someone like Shankar Mahadevan or to think even more wishfully the Oscar winning AR Rahman?

Visually, “Coke Studio” in India will probably be much better looking, and will be made on a larger scale, as it is being co-produced by MTV and Red Chillies Entertainment (owned by Shah Rukh Khan and Ghauri Khan). But at the same time, it could end up being treated like a ‘geet mala’, with a number of similar sounding duets and pointless fancy camera moves. On top of it, the kind of stock Indians put into dancing, who knows you might even see a group of dancers, or perhaps the singers may attempt to dance. I sure hope Shafqat doesn’t.

The quality of music may be average, and may not parallel the quality of sound that came out of the initial seasons in Pakistan. First of all, let’s not forget that unlike Pakistan, the pop music industry in India is surviving because it has a film industry to back it. Hence, the overall mindset of the musicians and the vocalists in India is very Bollywood-centric. The list of the artists released so far includes Shankar Mahadevan, Shafqat Amanat Ali, Kailash Kher, KK and Sunidhi Chauhan amongst the mainstream acts. The point being, “Coke Studio” was all about diversity, so where is it?

Although there are many qawwals like the Sabri brothers, and a number of folk artists are a part of the show, only time can tell whether they’ll be any different from the fusion acts of “Coke Studio” in Pakistan.

Apart from that there are expected to be a lot of duets, and the songs will largely be governed by lengthy raags. There might be some interesting instruments from the largely unknown parts of India, but they will only sound good when used aptly.

Worst of all would be the fusion of languages and not melodies. Keeping in mind that this will be the brain child of Lewis, please don’t be surprised if you find any major playback singers singing in English and sounding weird.

Some behind-the-scenes footage has been released, and you can find a folk artist dressed up like a malang standing alongside a known vocalist that looks and sounds so much like “Ek Alif” that one figures it has become a text book success format.

However, all cynicism aside, Lewis might have learnt something over time, and it is after all Red Chilies Entertainment who are looking after the production. Rumour has it that Shah Rukh Khan has approached the production team of “Live from Abbey Road” from where the concept seem to have originated.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 29^th, 2011.