After Arivu's Instagram post went viral, Enjoy Enjaami was a team effort, says Santhosh Narayanan

With its vibrant and powerful lyrics, Enjoy Enjaami packs a punch. Arivu has written the lyrics, and performed in it, including doing an Oppari bit, along with singer Dhee.

Dhee, Arivu and Santhosh Narayanan/Twitter

Several hours after Arivu claimed he had written, composed, sung, and performed the Tamil indie song Enjoy Enjaami, music composer Santhosh Narayanan, who has been credited as the song's producer, revealed his role in its creation. He put out a two-page statement on his Twitter, which states, that in December 2020, Dhee came up with an idea for a song that glorified our roots and celebrated nature. "I then composed, arranged, programmed, recorded and co-sang Enjoy Enjaami,” the post read.

Santhosh Narayanan's statement came just days after Dhee and Kidakuzhi Mariyammal performed the song at the 44th Chess Olympiad in Chennai. Arivu was not present at the event, and the Emcee credited the song's composition to Santhosh Narayanan.

In his statement, Santhosh thanked director Manikandan, known for Kutrame Thandanai, Kaaka Muttai and Kadaisi Vivasayi, “for meticulously choosing the foundation of the lyrics for this song and for spending so many hours with Arivu to create a flow and script for the song lyrics.” The composer says that Enjoy Enjaami was based on Manikandan’s recent movie Kadaisi Vivasayi.

The film stars an 85-year-old farmer Nallandi in the lead role along with Yogi Babu, besides Vijay Sethupathi playing a pivotal cameo. In an interview with a leading English daily, Manikandan said, Vijay Sethupathi was a pillar of support for this film. “When the release was getting delayed, I was worried about interest rates. We got OTT offers but he wanted this to be a theatre release,” the filmmaker added.

This is not the first time there has been a debate about Arivu's exclusion from credit for Enjoy Enjaami. Dhee and Sri Lankan-born Tamil rapper San Vincent de Paul were featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine last year. The article featured two songs sung by both artists that were popular at the time: Neeye Oli and Enjoy Enjaami, both of which Arivu wrote lyrics for. Neeye Oli was featured on the soundtrack of Pa Ranjith's Sarpatta Parambarai.

Later, singer Dhee and DJ Snake released an EDM version of Enjoy Enjaami on Spotify, which was streamed on the Times Square Billboard last year, and Arivu was again left out of the video.

In another interview, Arivu had said it took over 200 people and three months to produce Enjoy Enjaami. The story had mentioned that it was Dhee who approached Arivu to pen the lyrics. Arivu was quoted saying, “Dhee and I have known each other for quite some time, and had been talking about collaborating. When this came up, we thought it was the right opportunity.”

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