Salim Merchant has certainly shrugged off the COVID-19 blues that had plagued Bollywood these past two years. The rest of his 2022 is packed with live stage performances, a grassroots musical movement with some of the biggest names in India and somewhere in between, he’s composing for a London-based theatre production that goes by the name of ‘Disco Dancer’ and dropping a collaboration with the late Sidhu Moosewala.
And amid his jet-setting lifestyle, Salim will also find the time to squeeze in a match or three at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar in November to champion his favourite team.
The talented artist, who makes one half of the musical duo of Salim-Sulaiman Merchant, will return to the Dubai stage on July 16, performing live at the Coca-Cola Arena in an event organised by Portofolio Management Events (PME).
Ahead of their date with Dubai, Salim took a break from working at his Mumbai-based recording studio to get candid with Gulf News about their concert, launching their record label and putting together a special ode to the late Bappi Lahiri in that upcoming London stage musical.
Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/music/bollywood-composer-salim-merchant-talks-dubai-concert-launching-a-record-label-and-paying-ode-to-bappi-lahiri-at-londons-west-end-1.89245164
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Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
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#UAEnews #music #salimmerchant
And amid his jet-setting lifestyle, Salim will also find the time to squeeze in a match or three at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar in November to champion his favourite team.
The talented artist, who makes one half of the musical duo of Salim-Sulaiman Merchant, will return to the Dubai stage on July 16, performing live at the Coca-Cola Arena in an event organised by Portofolio Management Events (PME).
Ahead of their date with Dubai, Salim took a break from working at his Mumbai-based recording studio to get candid with Gulf News about their concert, launching their record label and putting together a special ode to the late Bappi Lahiri in that upcoming London stage musical.
Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/music/bollywood-composer-salim-merchant-talks-dubai-concert-launching-a-record-label-and-paying-ode-to-bappi-lahiri-at-londons-west-end-1.89245164
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV
#UAEnews #music #salimmerchant
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NewsTranscript
00:00I'm so excited you know to play all our top pick songs.
00:05Firstly, thank you Salim for taking time out. I'm pretty sure you're very very busy in the
00:10studio right now being creative and doing what you do best. So let me just start by first saying
00:15is the fans are extremely excited to see you and your brother back in Dubai on the Dubai stage.
00:21Tell us what they can expect from you this time around. It's been a really
00:26beautiful year of a lot of entertainment. It's been two years of COVID and like you know we
00:32are we were everybody has been waiting for great music. I know Dubai has had some amazing concerts
00:38but they haven't had Salim Suleiman live and this combination of Salman Ali, Raj Pandit and
00:44Bhoomi Trivedi along with Salim Suleiman is very, very, very special. Dubai is in for a big treat.
00:50I'm so excited you know to play all our top pick songs from all our Bollywood pick songs to our
00:55Sufi Kawalis to all that stuff. From Rabne Banadi Jodi to Kunwan to Aaja Nachle to Band Baja Bara to
01:04fashion, Chak De India you name it all those beautiful songs. It's going to be a treat for
01:11all kinds of people, all listeners, all music lovers. We've not been quiet. We started our own
01:17label which is called Merchant Records. We've made some great music not just us but
01:23different, different artists you know from from India, independent artists, people who
01:28wanted to always you know experiment with music and not just stick to a formula kind of music.
01:35They suddenly had a creative umbrella for themselves in the form of our label. I was
01:40always promoting good music and you know pushing for creative people to like come and release
01:45their stuff without any boundaries, without any sort of limitations or any kind of expectations
01:51and we gave birth to this beautiful label called Merchant Records. We started with releasing two
01:56songs a month and we are now at eight songs a month so you can imagine how many songs released
02:01all over here. We always made independent music right from 2012 you know I think when Band Baja
02:09released and Aevi Aevi released I had the I had the confidence to do music that was out of the
02:15box like you know like Aevi was a complete wedding song like a wedding song but you know we
02:20gave it a very different twist to it and it's really seemed to work with the people you know it
02:24became so popular and stuff like that and that gave me the confidence to do to bring out you
02:29know when we did Aevi Aevi, the director didn't like that song.
02:33Really?
02:34You know yeah he didn't like it so but we pushed it we pushed very hard and we made it
02:39believe that you know and because it was his first film he trusted us but he wasn't sure at all
02:46you know he wasn't sure it was his first film, it was Ranveer's first film, it was Abhishek's second
02:51film they were not confident about they wanted a very formula-based wedding song. People
02:57who make music, independent music are trying to make independent music sound like films
03:04so independent music is sounding like film music and film music is sounding like independent you
03:08know and the lines are very blurred now in between so you don't know what's what but you
03:14know what it doesn't matter as long as every month, every two weeks or one week there's some
03:22good music that gets popular whether it's through reels, whether it's whatever I just feel like you
03:27know composers and musicians should make music for the sake of music and art and not make music
03:34for reels because when you start making music for reels then you know you there is a certain
03:39kind of a approach that you take which only seems to work in short music formats. A lot of things
03:45are changing very, very quickly you know from TikTok to reels to all that stuff but it's
03:49important for musicians, for composers in my belief it's important to you know focus on the
03:57art, focus on making pure music, good music whether it's dance music or it's you know it's
04:04timeless melodies or it's whatever it is you know you need to focus it focus on the music for its
04:10art and not for the fact that it becomes sensational on different platforms that's very
04:16important there are all kinds of films that come out there are films that give you a lot of freedom
04:21there are films that are sort of period films that have a certain music as a character and they
04:28want the music to be you know obviously a reflection of the story and the characters
04:32so I can't just say it in a general way that you know that that films sets up a boundary and sets
04:40up a ceiling and stuff like that it really depends on the composer like we were really, really we
04:46had a very strict boundary for the wedding for sorry for Band Baja Baraat we had a very strict
04:53boundary for Rabne Banaji Jodi also but for fashion we never had any boundaries like Madhur
05:00gave us a lot of freedom so we you know we went same with Kurban, Kurban had a lot of freedom so
05:07it doesn't matter you know sometimes it's important to break through all your boundaries
05:12and still bring bring out good music we're working on Disco Dancer that's a new musical
05:17production it's going to be a complete stage musical they're going to release it in London
05:22first, it's going to go to West End, oh that's amazing
05:27it's a beautiful sensational story very of course 1980s most famous Disco Dancer story of
05:35Mithunda you know music by Pappi Lahiri ji it's going to be a phenomenal you know musical
05:44live music, live singing, dancing and it's going to be it's going to be great a couple of years
05:50ago we did Umrao Jaan, we're bringing back the Umrao Jaan as a stage musical bringing that back
05:56we have a very big song as a collaboration with the late Sidhu Moosewala that's coming out very,
06:03very soon we were waiting for you know things to sort of settle down with you know Sidhu's
06:10family to be a little more you know come to peace with it and then release the song and we didn't
06:15want to take advantage of what's happened very unfortunate things that have happened but it's a
06:20beautiful song and it'll be a real treat for his fans and for our listeners and so it'll be it'll
06:27be great we have Bhoomi 22 which is going to release in October every year we do us we do
06:35this musical movement project called Bhoomi we did Bhoomi 2020, we did Bhoomi 21 this year's Bhoomi
06:4222 will feature Sonu Nigam, Sunidhi Chauhan, Shreya Ghoshal, Divine feature Raj Pandit,
06:52Kashmiri folk singer called Noor Muhammad, Harsh Deep Kaur, myself UAE's fantastic artist
07:01called Ayesha Abdullah she's a young girl 16 year old girl, Vipul Mehta, Mohit Bharti, Pratibha Singh,
07:09Miguel, lots of incredible singers and the Mangania folk singers, Mangania and Langa folk
07:15singers of Rajasthan. I am seriously considering Qatar, I'm not going to be there for the whole
07:21season but I'll surely catch the the quarterfinals of the semi-final game.
07:26So who are you rooting for?
07:27My favourite team has always been Brazil and you know so I'm going to like I'm always going to be
07:34rooting for them.