Bappi Lahiri was an Indian music composer and songwriter who was popularly known for his Disco tunes and eye-catching fashion sense. He was fondly known as “Bappi Da” and was the one who started disco music in India. He had a very lively presence and attitude towards everyone he met, but many issues made him upset and forced him to speak out for them.
There was a controversy that revolved around a casual comment made in Karan Johar’s, “Ae Dil Hai Mushkil”. While playing a guessing game one of the songs that came up was a song composed by Bappi Lahiri, “Taki O Taki” from the movie Himmatwala that Ranbir Kapoor mouthed as “Tacky O Tacky”. His son Bappa Lahiri commented that the remark made his father deeply hurt as it was a mockery on his work.
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“Indu Sarkar” was a movie by Bhandarkar that was set in the period when Indira Gandhi imposed a state of emergency across the country. The trailer made congress workers protest against the movie’s release thus resulting in its cancellation. Bappi Lahiri who was a part of the political party came out and supported Bhandarkar saying that he was his favorite filmmaker and one of the good directors in the film fraternity. The “Disco Dancer’ hitmaker didn’t comment any further on this issue.
Bappi Lahiri once regarded himself as “Amitabh Bachchan” of the Film industry, he even went forward and talked about his western competitors and how they copy him. He mentioned that Eminem, Shakira, and Beyonce dress like him. He had always been known and popular for this eye-catching fashion sense that included a lot of gold necklaces.
One of his most wildly popular songs “Thora Resham Lagta Hai” from the 1982 movie ‘Jyoti’ gained international attention and was sampled by the American producer DJ Quik when he accidentally heard the song on TV one morning. Dr. Dre was the Executive producer on this, the sample turned out to be “Thora Resham Lagta Hai” by the late Lata Mangeskar, but neglected to clear the rights to the song. As the result Bappi Lahiri sued Dr. Dre and won. Soon the original song was remixed by Indian composer Harry Anand as “Kaliyon Ka Chaman” sung by Shaswati Phukan.
