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Exclusive Interview: Pushpa Music Director Devi Sri Prasad On Conceiving Oo Antava The Unconventional Way
Allu Arjun starrer Pushpa's music composer Devi Sri Prasad is exhilarated with the immense appreciation coming his way. All the five power-packed tracks of the rural entertainer including 'Daakko Daakko Meka', 'Srivalli', 'Oo Antava Oo Oo Antava', 'Saami Saami' and 'Ey Bidda Idhi Naa Adda' are ruling the charts and have already made their ways to Global Top 100 list of YouTube's Most Liked Music Videos- a significant achievement for an Indian music director.
Pushpa marks his third collaboration with Allu Arjun and Sukumar, after Arya (2004) and Arya 2 (2009), and the pressure would have been high. However, the celebrated composer stresses that he believes in creating music without caring much about the hype surrounding the projects he works on. Focus is his key and he time and again hits a home run. Well, the roaring success of his latest outing and his illustrious discography, which is aging like a fine wine, serves as proof.
In an exclusive tete-a-tete with Filmibeat, Devi Sri Prasad gets candid about his inspiring musical journey, Pushpa, its colossal success and 'Oo Antava', of course.
From Devi to Pushpa, you have come a long way, and it truly is inspiring. How does it feel to become a bankable composer?
More than anything, what is more important is the trust people have in you. So when someone comes to me with a story, they narrate it, ask me to take care of it and they just leave, and that process gave me a lot of responsibility and strength. Because people are trusting me I am more responsible and passionate. That's something we should earn and it only happens by the body of the work.
You have always been a trendsetter. Tell us what's the plan of action like when you first commit to a project?
What attracts me to a film is its subject. Once the excitement comes I know that I would be able to do something different for this film. So I always look at what difference I can bring to the project. That's what I do. When they come for the story narration, they tell me that the film requires 4 songs and I place each of them in the required situations. Sometimes to an important sequence or to even a fight scene. Sometimes they may request some 7 songs and I may feel that the songs are a little bit extra and it may pull down the film or it is going to be little boring or dragging. So we remove those songs or cut one song into two parts. I come up with such ideas because I feel I am still a part of the audience. I don't listen to songs like a music composer, I listen to them like an audience. So you know exactly what is exciting and what is not exciting.
Talking specifically about Pushpa, all the songs were released in 5 languages and they all seemed different from one another. Maybe this is one of the reasons why you stand out from the crowd. Can you spill the beans on how you make your compositions so region friendly?
I am really glad that you made this a question. A song becomes regionally attractive only if you know the language. Every language has its own charm. The lyrics which works in one language might not work in another language. At least it might not work in the same format. You will have to change the expressions because every language has its own native expressions. I am blessed that I know Telugu, Tamil and Hindi. I am not very fluent while speaking in Hindi, but I do understand and can write and read Hindi as well. This has helped me tailor-make songs in all languages, without losing the flavour of their original. So I think that's how it worked. For Malayalam and Kannada, I have translators sitting with me and my lyricist, and we check each and every line so that those versions don't lose their charm. But it took a long time, for me it was like working on five different films. That is the amount of physical work that went into it. Finally, everything has worked in all languages and that's kind of really thrilling.
All tracks of Pushpa have already become instant chartbusters and have also made it to YouTube's Global Top 100 List. How do you feel?
I am really happy about it. Thanks to my director Sukumar sir, my producer Mythri Movie Makers and of course Allu Arjun.
The song 'Oo Antava' recently made headlines for its lyrics that was called 'problematic' by a section of people. What was your initial reaction to the whole thing?
Nowadays, people are making most things controversial. It is not concerning anymore. We just keep doing our work.
Pushpa must have been a home ground for you as you have already worked with Allu Arjun and Sukumar for the blockbuster films Arya and Arya 2. Was the hype concerning you in any way?
Generally, the best thing an artist or a technician should do is to never be bothered about the hype or pressure a project creates. Because if you think about the hype, it will only stress you up. So even when we did Arya, I composed 'Aa Ante Amalapuram'. I came up with the idea because I was born in Amalapuram, which is my mom's hometown. And you might know how hit the song was. When we were doing Arya 2, with the same team, people were thinking that how we are going to match 'Aa Ante Amalapuram'. Everyone was under pressure. So I advised them that let's not stress out like that. Because when we did Arya, no one expected the song would become a super hit.
So I told them, 'let me see this as a fresh project and analyse what I can do', that's how everyone was calmed down. I did 'Ringa Ringa' for it and if we had done that song with some pressure, then it wouldn't have become another hit. I do everything as a fresh new thing.
Similarly, after so many years the same combo came together for Pushpa, again all the songs became chartbusters, and I didn't have any hype attached to it. When I came up with the 'Oo Antava' idea, I thought that most of the item songs were made with this loud beat and energetic rhythm and vocals, so why don't I try giving a treatment that is very soft, melodious and slow? So I went to Sukumar sir saying that am sending a tune, and it will make you think 'arey how are you going to make an item number out of this one?'. I told him that it will surely become a trendsetter, I was confident about it. That's how we did it. I think nobody should work thinking about the hype as it will kill your creativity.
Can you share with us about your other upcoming projects?
The upcoming projects that are happening are Chiranjeevi sir's film with Bobby as the director. We are done with 2-3 songs. And there is Hari Shankar and Pawan Kalyan sir's movie for which we have completed a couple of songs. Khiladi is coming out next month, and that's with Ravi Teja sir. There is one more interesting film directed by Nagesh Kukunoor with Keerthy Suresh as the main lead. In Bollywood too there are a couple of projects on which I am currently working.
And apart from this, since I am a huge lover and devotee of Michael Jackson, we are releasing a single on him very soon. We were supposed to do it last year, but again due to the pandemic condition and lockdown we kind of stopped. We are almost completing that work and will be releasing it soon in Hindi.
