After making his debut as a singer and composer with the 2019 single ‘Aankhon Ke Ishaare’, Raahul Jatin has made a place for himself and his music in the hearts of listeners in a very short span of time. ‘Batao Na’, his recently released single, is a mellifluous melody that catches your attention immediately.
Talking about the process of creating this track, the young composer-singer says, “I first created the rhythm of the hookline. After that, the tune got composed very organically. The song had a different title earlier but dad (Jatin Pandit) and I decided that ‘Batao Na’ would be the most appropriate title for it. In the music video, I play a billionaire who pretends to be a driver. By saying ‘batao na’, a driver asks his client where they are headed to when he reports for duty. In this song, the boy is asking the girl “batao na, where can we meet?”. We thought it would be nice to play around with this phrase.”
The lyrics for the song have been written by Raahul’s father, the legendary composer Jatin Pandit. The video, which brings to the fore an interesting story, has been directed by Harper Gunia, whom Raahul has collaborated with some of his other videos in the past.
“Apart from composing and singing ‘Batao Na’, I had to act quite a bit in the music video. It was fun but quite challenging as it was a performance-oriented part. Harper guided me well throughout the process. I love cars, so the most fun part of shooting the video was getting the opportunity to drive two beautiful cars, V8 Range Rover and Electric Tesla. We shot the video in different locations in California. Because of the Covid-19 restrictions, the shoot was a little challenging but we managed to achieve what we had set out to”, he says.
Raahul has some fond memories of meeting veteran singer Lata Mangeshkar, who passed away a couple of days ago, whom his father had recorded many songs with.
“I was a child when I visited Lata ji’s house the last time. Dad was carrying a biography of her in his hand and he wanted it to be signed by her. Lata ji was a little unwell that day, so he went inside the room, got it signed by her and came back. Apart from putting down her signature, Lata ji had written ‘sah-sneh, Lata Mangeshkar’ on it. I don’t the world will ever get over with her loss. Her voice will be heard by generations to come.”
Apart from releasing singles, Raahul has been doing a lot of shows as a singer and a performer. A while back, he performed at a show in Chicago that was attended by a large audience. As the fear of Covid-19 across the world is subsiding, he hopes to do live shows more often this year.