Girish Khatiwada is currently touring Australia where he has been performing at various venues. The rap artist’s Sydney gig – that took place on February 25th – turned out to be extremely special for him as he reunited with Sudin Pokharel aka DA 69.
The two pioneers of Nepali Hip Hop shared the stage together after over 15 years.
The two emcees, who have given some of the most iconic Nepali rap collaborations like ‘Ma Yesto Chu’ and ‘Malai Vote Deu’, performed some of their all time hits, including ‘She’s The Bomb’ – the popular song that had its share of controversy back in its day.
A little flashback for the readers who might have forgotten about it, and the ones who are too young to know about it — ‘She’s The Bomb’, a song by The Unity (DA 69 and Aidray), had become an instant hit when it was released in mid-2000s. Part of the album Girish & The Unity, the song also featured DJ Raju along with ‘Sarkari Jaagira’ singer Kranti Ale, the vocalist of Dr. Pilots. Released by Music Dot Com, the music video for the song was done by G21 Production.
But after some time, something strange happened. Another record label, Samjahana Audio Video (SAV), released the same song – but with Girish Khatiwada and Sugam Pokharel on vocals.
It was quite surprising for the fans as they wondered how come the same song with exact same lyrics and composition was released in two different versions by two different record labels.
From L to R: Aidray, DA 69 and Girish Khatiwada in early 2000s.
Well, after over a decade, we now finally know what exactly had happened back then.
On Thursday, Girish Khatiwada – who is now an equally popular vlogger – uploaded a 13-minute vlog that has DA 69 with him. The video, shot after their Sydney gig, has the two talking about a lot of things – mainly talking about DA’s long break from music.
While they were at it, the two even talked about ‘She’s The Bomb’ song controversy from years ago. “Alright, I am gonna make it clear about ‘She’s The Bomb’ controversy right away because Sudin is here with me”, Girish suddenly starts talking about the topic.
“The thing is, it was a song that me and Sugam made. It also had the lyrics by Aidray in its second verse. And when I went to the US, the music company wanted to release the album as soon as possible as it already had been a lot of time since it was stuck. And they actually forced them [The Unity]. I am gonna blame it to the music company”, he says.
Then DA 69 explains what had happened. “They [music company] even said to us that they would get other rappers and release the song if we don’t do it. We were pressurized. It was all Girish’s effort, the whole album was his effort. And it was quite obvious, that he or anybody in his place would have been hurt.”
Girish then makes it clear that he hadn’t actually got hurt. “But actually, I wasn’t hurt. I didn’t care about anything. I just wanted the album to come out. It had already been two years. It was one gem of an album with songs like ‘Drug Song’, ‘Malai Vote Deu’, ‘Money’, ‘Welcome to the Gang’.”
The two then talked about their plans of making music together in future.
In short, this is a video that would make any Nepali Hip Hop fan scream with joy. Watch the full video here.
‘Ma Yesto Chu’, the song by Girish, Pranil and DA 69, had released in 2000. They later worked together on an album called Girish & The Unity. In 2003, Girish left for the US while The Unity (DA, Aidray and Asif Shah) continued making music. Girish returned to Nepal in 2010, but a year later, Sudin left for Australia where he has been living since then.
