Raja Kumari: When Bollywood needs me, they know my contact number

Raja Kumari’s tryst with the Hindi music industry has been limited, but she has managed to stand out. Freaking life in Mom, Allah Duhai in Race 3 are examples of the kind of songs which utilised her voice.

But she made sure each one had different flavours. “The last Hindi song I did was for Arijit Singh in Pagglait, he had composed the music. But it was elevated Hindi for me. Since I was born in America, English is my primary language. I chose to make music in it. But music has a universal language, melody is universal,” she reasons.

But it isn’t as if she is consciously chasing Hindi projects. “Bollywood stories are always appealing. But singing in Hindi is not something I go after, they always come to me. I did Husn Parcham for Shah Rukh Khan in Zero (2018), then Wakhra Swag in Judgementall Hai Kya which was a no brainer. It was released within days of it being recorded. I know that when Bollywood needs me, they know my contact number,” laughs Kumari, who recently came out with Made in India, sampling the original popular Hindi single sung by Alisha Chenoy.

The singer says she writes all her songs herself. “I live in a generation and time when great songs are being brought back. I worked with a sample, re-envisioned it. It was not a cover. The production happened at my home in Los Angeles. I went through months acquiring it from the original label. I put time into it. And this song was like once a hit, always a hit. The greatest tongue in cheek moment was telling people even though for some I was an outsider, America thinks I am an Indian and I am not given accolades,” she says.