MUMBAI: All of MY FM’s 17 stations are grooving to the new rap anthem by Badshah. The network bagged the ‘Saturday Saturday’ rapper for a two- minute track, in which he pushes the station’s tagline ‘Jiyo Dil Se’ through the hook. The network, along with the artist, managed to complete the anthem in 30 days, including the finished song and its video.

Commenting on the association, MY FM CEO Harrish M Bhatia said, “Badshah is a renowned artist, his music cuts across all genres. It was a meeting of like-minded people; he took his own time to compose the lyrics, as this work was a first of its kind for him as well. Both the brands will benefit with the association.” Supporting Bhatia’s comment was MY FM’s programming head Viplove Gupte, who said, “He is a supremely talented artist, someone who understands his listeners while composing his own songs and while we discussed this idea with him, he was excited to understand our product philosophy.”

Gupte further added, “Badshah being Badshah, took the brief and then created his own version, with his own lyrics, his own tune and his own singing. He wanted to do his best so he worked really hard on it. In fact, despite of a phase when he was not keeping well, he kept improvising the song. That commitment is what we could see in him, right at the beginning. We are extremely happy that we chose nobody else other than him. We did not even consider any other artist. Popularity definitely plays a crucial role in hiring an artist but the fact that he is amazingly talented and understands the brief is something rare in artist.”

MY FM has a simple plan to push the track and that is asking their RJs to promote it heavily across the network. Gupte said, “The excitement of listeners is unbelievable. We had to literally send the videos via Whatsapp to them.” The network has partnered with telcos like Airtel, Idea and Tata to push the track. MY FM will be using digital arm of its group, Bhaskar.com, to help promote the song. He also revealed that the video will be played on cinema screens. Gupte added, “We have also used site capture technique on some of the trade websites to push it through clients and agencies. Also, the print campaign is already running.”

When asked to comment on how much influence rap, as a genre, has on MY FM, Gupte said, “We are a Hindi film music radio station and since there is no way we can cut genres out of Hindi film music, it is really unfair to ask any radio station if the genre reflects on it. Artists like Badshah, Honey Singh, Leo etc. who have revolutionised rap, long after it was lost, are a part of our daily playlist. Such music is a part of our daily playlist.”

The network added that the new anthem is not related to programming change, and that the look and feel of the network continues to be the same.