When Anoop Seelin brought Disco King Bappi Lahiri back to Kannada cinema with Current Hoda Timealli

Bappi Lahiri, who was considered India’s Disco King passed away late last night. One of the most popular music composers in Bollywood in the 80s and 90s, Bappida, as he was fondly known, made inroads in Kannada cinema as well, with the late Vishnuvardhan’s Krishna Nee Begana Baro and Charanraj’s Africadalli Sheela. But it was much later, in 2014 that Bappida made his Kannada playback singing debut, when he sang Current Hoda Timealli for the film Love in Mandya.

Watch glimpses of Bappi Lahiri singing the song below:

Composer J Anoop Seelin was reportedly hell bent on getting Bappi to sing the 80s disco era style song, and spent a lot of time convincing the composer-singer that he could do it. Written by director Arasu Anthare, Current Hoda Timealli was meant to be a peppy romantic dance number featuring the lead pair, Sathish Ninasam and Sindhu Loknath and Anoop knew it would be best in Bappi’s vocals. After nearly a month of to and fro, Bappi - who had earlier sung a song for his film Africadalli Sheela, which only featured on the cassette, with Yesudas crooning the film version – agreed to sing the song, after hearing the track version that Anoop had sung. In that sense, Current Hoda Timealli became Bappida’s one and only official Kannada playback project.

When the time came for the actual recording, Bappi spent hours as many as eight hours in the studio only to practice and get his diction right, says producer Uday K Mehta, adding that the credit for getting the veteran Bollywood composer on board for Love In Mandya goes to Anoop. When the song came out, the team had released a making of video, which featured Bappi singing the hook line Current Hoda Timealli, hudugi idlu maglali’, and later saying that he not only enjoyed singing it, but that he also believed the song would become a hit, as he quite liked Anoop’s composition.