IT was a chance of a lifetime and two local nasyid singers jumped at the opportunity when they were asked to sing a Tamil song in a promotional video for the movie Petta featuring megastar Rajnikanth.
Mu’adz Dzulkefly and Azwan Ibrahim were simply thrilled and both agreed without hesitation to sing Ullala as it was an honour to be associated in any way to the South Indian legend.
“The song by Mu’adz and Azwan will be in the video clip to promote the movie in the Asean countries,” said Malik Streams Corporation CEO Datuk Abdul Malik Dasthigeer whose company holds the rights to distribute the film globally except in India.
The Malaysian duo’s version of the Tamil song would be sent to Rajinikanth tomorrow, he said at the launching of their album here yesterday.
The original singers of the song in the movie are Nakash Aziz and Inno Genga.
Mu’adz told Bernama that although he had been singing Tamil songs, the experience of singing Ullala was different as it was a form of “recognition” for himself.
“We took five days to produce the video. The main challenge was in getting the diction and pronunciation right for the song and the facial expressions that had to do with the lyrics,” he said.
Both the singers were trained by Malaysian composer, lyricist and popular scriptwriter, Kavilnayagan Yuwaji while Saran Z was director of the video.
However, this was not the first time that the duo had worked together. They had sung a local Tamil song entitled ‘Azhagu’ in 2014 with the music group Salaam.
Azwan, a Rajnikanth fan said that he was also motivated to sing the song as it was composed by South India’s famous young musician Anirudh Ravichander, who has had countless accolades and awards.
Mu’adz released his album ‘Rindukan Cahaya’ in 2013, while Azwan is a member of Fareast, a popular nasyid group with eight albums so far.
Abdul Malik said the movie Petta which means “area of origin”, is scheduled to be screened in three languages -Tamil, Hindi and Telugu - in 140 cinemas across the country on Jan 10, in conjunction with the forthcoming Ponggal or harvest festival.
Directed by Karthik Subbaraj, the movie has a line-up of famous Indian stars such as Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vijay Sethupathi, Simran, Trisha and Bobby Simha.
It has been rumoured that this would be Rajnikanth’s last movie as the actor has plans of getting into politics. — Bernama
