So, yesterday the first song from SRK’s upcoming movie ‘Pathaan’ called ‘Besharam Rang’, also featuring Deepika Padukone, dropped online and the internet collectively lost its calm. The song is undoubtedly sexy with an even sexier Deepika and the sexiest of all time, Shahrukh Khan. However, to what extent does the song’s originality goes is a big question.
Several people online, who have knowledge of international music, pointed out that the main beat of ‘Besharam Rang’ was copied from a song called ‘Makeba’ by a French artist named Jain. Makeba was released way back in November 2015.
‘Besharam Rang’ has been composed by the famous Bollywood music duo Vishal and Shekhar while the lyrics are written by Kumaar. If you listen to the beginning of the two songs, you will hear the startling similarity. There is not a beat that’s here and there.
Here’s a look at the song ‘Makeba’:
And here is ‘Besharam Rang’:
Considering the rate at which Bollywood has been plagiarising songs, movie lovers were not shocked by this. It’s not something unexpected. But they were angered by how the makers of the song could just lift another song’s beat and call it their own.
#BesharamRang background is a complete copy of the Makeba song by Jain!
I do agree the tweaks made make it a bit more Bollywoody and catchy.
The similarity of the vibe of the entire song to Ghungroo from War is just non-ignorable.— Duke🦹🏾♂️🕺🏾🧘🏾♂️ (@imurugun) December 12, 2022
Yep it bloody is.
Jain's song Makeba was plagiarised to create #BesharamRang for #Pathaan pic.twitter.com/glZPYHiwMO
— Karna (@FranciumKarna) December 12, 2022
The moment i heard #BesharamRang i was thinking where the hell i heard this beats before, well took me a while figured that this is Makeba by Jain anyway Great work @VishalDadlani and @ShekharRavjiani
Not to mention the original creator @Jainmusic pic.twitter.com/k7p8vdpvez— Haritosh Bhatt (@HaritoshBhatt) December 12, 2022
Peeked at #BesharamRang.
How the hell has no one guessed that it seems to have plagiarised the wonderfully talented Jain's Makeba song or at least its main beat? pic.twitter.com/8vnaopclmZ
— Karna (@FranciumKarna) December 12, 2022
Is it me or you peps also think this new song #BesharamRang sounds like #Makeba by Jain. Can we expect something og from #Bollywood #Pathaan
— Vinayak (@Starbouy95) December 12, 2022
So they copied the song and made a cheap copy of Ghungroo as a video 💀💀💀 https://t.co/9SYA3XNGkk
— VM (@vatrat_mulga) December 13, 2022
…..and YES ! the opening bit does sound like Makeba by jain #BesharamRang
— Dhruv 🦥 (@wickedhruv) December 12, 2022
This is not all. Earlier, it was highlighted that one-too-many frames from the song were very similar to ‘Ghungroo’, the dance number from ‘War’, starring Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff.
Bollywood really does need to do better.