A few times I`ve posted up some Indian disco tunes on the site here and I think just about every single one has been a Bappi Lahiri song (wiki, myspace fan page). His song are always so mad and he`s seemed like a really cool guy. It amazing- he’s written the soundtrack for over 430 films, so when I had the chance to meet him and have lunch at his home I didn`t believe it was gonna happen but it did. Rahul and I arrived at the Lahiri House and were sat down in Bappi`s Record room, which is literally wall to wall with accomplishment, from 30 something number ones in one year on South Africa Radio to 4x platinum plaque for a single of his, to actual National Records like the 37 films in one year and the first Indian to have a number one song in USA for when Dre and Quik sampled him for “Addictive” Truth Hurts. So after a few minutes Bappi arrived and sat down, we talked about all his hits, he knows just how high every song charted and what award he`s won for each. Bappi is very much a Bappi Encyclopedia. He brought up “Jimmy” the MIA song which is a composition by him, he says Number 16 in South Africa, Number 20 In UK etc etc. We talked about our work in Dharavi, Slumdog Millionaire, and more of Bappi`s other achievements: dude was blessed by Mother Theresa.
Bappi then proposed a great project that we should work on so I`ll hopefully be going back to his home Friday and Saturday to do some top secret stuff that I can`t talk about yet. So after our chat his son Bappa (who is also a bollywood composer) showed up and they both showed us Bappi`s studio and another award room.
His studio was a shock, very simple, three keyboards, one vocal booth and a mixing board, It just like our setup at the mausoleum even the same monitors. His second award room/ writing room was full of pics of him with everyone,
...from Boy George
...to Lata Mangeshkar
...to Jackie Chan
...to MC Hammer
and had two stack of his records which were about 2 feet high each. He also had his favorite keyboards in the room and a nice chill out area where I bet he writes all his songs.
So after the tour and the talk we didn`t want to waste any more of his time so we left but he almost didn`t want us to. I`m really looking forward to heading back there in a few days.
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