Rapper Badshah is renowned for his unique blend of Punjabi and hip-hop music styles, incorporating catchy beats and infectious hooks into his songs. He enjoys a massive fan following and some of his popular tracks in films include “Kala Chashma” from “Baar Baar Dekho” (2016) and “Tareefan” from “Veere Di Wedding” (2018).
While he is now a successful rapper, he landed in a controversy back in 2020 when his song Paagal was released. He was accused of paying ₹72 lakh for additional views on his music video, in a bid to break a viewership record. Now the rapper has reacted to the accusation.
During a conversation with leading podcaster Raj Shamani for his show ‘Figuring Out’, Badshah extensively spoke about the YouTube views controversy with the song ‘Paagal’. He said, “You can never buy YouTube views; it’s called buying adverts from legitimate buying agencies. The agenda was to make ‘Paagal’ visible to maximum audiences and achieve a certain viewership number so that we can flex. We thought we had a global song and we wanted to advertise it to a global audience. At that time J Balvin’s ‘Mi Gente’ had dropped, and it was a huge hit and we felt Hindi shouldn’t be a barrier since music has no boundaries.”
“‘Paagal’ is a huge hit in Brazil, and a lot of people know me because of that song. My vision was to serve ‘Paagal’ to the world, and I was okay investing legitimately whatever money it took for that crossover to happen. We bought advertisements from three agencies who were empanelled by YouTube with proper GST invoices. Unfortunately, some of our audiences started spreading the narrative of fake views. I still don’t know what fake views are.”, he further added.
“It’s like, what phone do you use?” asks Badshah, Raj Shamani replies “iPhone”. The rapper then continues, “Aap airport pe jaate ho toh iphone ke ad dekhte ho na? Ch*tiya company hai kya Apple? 3 Trillion dollar ki company hai. Unethical company hai iPhone? jinke pas nhi hai shayad woh bhi kharid le iPhone”
Badshah went on to say, “Today, all your major brands advertise to promote their products to a larger audience, it’s not ethical or illegal, and that’s exactly what we did for our song to reach new audiences. I realised later this was propaganda created against me. I took it in my stride and I was like well, a boy from Pitampura is actually such a talking point for many. I invested my own money because I believed in the song. Today, labels and artists out of India heavily advertise their products. Take the example of Taylor Swift or Kendrick Lamar who also market to audiences in India too. Everyone needs a scapegoat but audiences need to be educated and make an informed decision before slandering everyone. Its funny, at my biggest ever show in Ahmedabad in 2019 which had a 33,000 footfall, I wanted to take a selfie and caption it ‘me with my fake followers’.”
So what do you think about Badshah’s reply to the accusations of buying fake views for his song Paagal? Let us know in the comments
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