"Enjoy The Original, No Short-Cuts," Tweets AR Rahman After Masakali 2.0

Sonam and Abhishek in a still from Masakali (courtesy YouTube)

Oscar-winning music maestro AR Rahman, who is a man of few words, shared a tweet within just a few hours of a reprised version of his 2009 song Masakali released on Wednesday. Titled Masakali 2.0, the recreated version features Sidharth Malhotra and Tara Sutaria and has been widely criticised on Twitter for being a poor attempt at remixing the original. Mr Rahman did not mention Masakali 2.0 in his statement but his tweet saying: "Enjoy the original Masakali," seemed to say it all. In his tweet, AR Rahman opened up about what went into making Masakali ia memorable song n these words: "No short-cuts, properly commissioned, sleepless nights, writes and re-writes. Over 200 musicians, 365 days of creative brainstorming with the aim to produce music that can last generations."

"A team of a director, a composer and a lyricist supported by actors, dance directors and a relentless film crew," he added. The original Masakali, which featured Sonam Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan, was part of 2009 film Delhi-6's soundtrack. Masakali is remembered for its melodic tunes, sung in the voice of Mohit Chauhan. Composed by AR Rahman of course, the song was written by Prasoon Joshi and the film was directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra.

Meanwhile, credits for singing Masakali 2.0 go to Sachet Tandon and Tulsi Kumar while the remixed music has been composed by Tanishk Bagchi. The song has been produced by T-Series.

Take a look at AR Rahman's tweet here:

Enjoy the original #Masakalihttps://t.co/WSKkFZEMB4@RakeyshOmMehra@prasoonjoshi_@_MohitChauhanpic.twitter.com/9aigZaW2Ac

— A.R.Rahman (@arrahman) April 8, 2020

The morning after Mr Rahman's tweet, he found a spot on the trends' list on Twitter with netizens declaring the original song as an all-time favourite and also hailing him for speaking up. "None can beat the original version," read a tweet while another added: "This is like one tight slap." Another surprised user tweeted: "He snapped!" while one more added: "Two minutes of silence for T-Series and Masakali 2.0 remix team."

OG forever.

— Ankur Téwari (@ankurtewari) April 9, 2020

None can beat the original version #Masakali..my fav song pic.twitter.com/LnCmdtCONn

— VIDYA NATARAJAN (@VidyaN_18) April 8, 2020

This is like one tight slap

— Satissh (@Satissh12) April 8, 2020

ORIGINAL IS ORIGINAL SIR!

— Rakshita Suresh (@suresh_rakshita) April 8, 2020

He SNAPPED!!

— Brandy Sahni (@BrandySahni) April 8, 2020

Here's the original Masakali song:

Here's the reprised version:

Earlier in 2017, another one of AR Rahman's songs - Humma Humma - was recreated by Tanishk Bagchi for Aditya Roy Kapur and Shraddha Kapoor's film OK Jaanu. Speaking to Hindustan Times then, Mr Rahman had said: "I wasn't happy with the idea, initially. I was really hesitant about it at the start... But Shaad (the film's director) was insistent. He kept on asking if we could use the song. So I asked Tanishk to come up with the first four bars of the song, and I kind of liked the beat. It sounded good and a bit different."