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Daler Mehndi Reveals Why He Sings Less Songs In Bollywood; 'I Am Too Costly To Afford'
With a career spanning over three decades in the music industry, Daler Mehndi has a prolific body of songs to his credit. The singer ruled the charts in 1990s with several chartbuster songs like 'Bolo Ta Ra Ra', 'Dardi Rab Rab', 'Tunak Tunak Tun' amongst others. He also crooned popular Bollywood numbers like 'Rang De Basanti', 'Jiyo Re Baahubali', 'Bhootni Ke' and 'Jagga Jiteya.'
Recently while speaking with Indian Express, Daler opened up on why doesn't take up much work in Bollywood. The singer revealed that he is very choosy about the songs and too costly to afford.
Daler spoke at length about how he picks up work and said, "I need to like the song and its lyrics, it should be socially good for the new generation too. There isn't an artiste costlier than me in India's playback singing scene. I demand maximum money for a song. Other singers don't get money."
He further continued, "I'll tell you the process of making a song today. A dummy singer first records it in Mumbai. Then it is recorded with several struggling or new singers, and then whichever voice they want, they retain the song in that singer's voice. With me, first you pay Rs 6 lakhs and GST, then I record the song. Hence, they aren't able to remove my song from the film because they know it is them who approached me. That's the reason why I have less songs, firstly because I'm too costly to afford, secondly I'm very choosy about the songs and thirdly, I don't want to do dirty work in market."
In the same interview, Daler also revealed why he stays away from judging reality shows and said that if he gets the right amount of money, he is open to doing such shows.
"I tell them I won't do it for free. Reality shows have a budget of crores. When they are making money, even I should get it. And I will do honest judging, and say honest things. But, I want my fees," Indian Express quoted him as saying.
The singer also talked about the changing scenario in the music industry and said, "Earlier there was one company that spent on promotions, audio, video. Now, when the singer will invest his own money, he'll try to spend less on video, locations. Then quality suffers. It only works for two days. After that nobody remembers the song."
