R& B singer Akon has sung in Hindi, and that too fluent Hindi, for a track in Shah Rukh Khan's production of Ra.1. Initially it was meant to be only a smattering of words in Hindi.
Now there are passages of Hindi by Akon. The absence of an accent in his singing of the Hindi words in the track took Shah Rukh Khan so much by surprise that he decided to add some more Hindi words and lines into Akon's song in Ra.1.
Confirming this, composer Shekhar Ravjiani speaking on behalf of the duo Vishal-Shekhar who have composed the Akon track, says, "Akon's Hindi took all of us by surprise. It was almost like he had been speaking the language all his life.
No one could believe Akon was seeing those Hindi lines for the first time. He just rattled of the lines as if he was conversant with Hindi.When you hear the song you will see no difference in the singing quality of Akon's English and Hindi lines."
Ra.1 is expected to have 10 tracks. Vishal-Shekhar are in the process of creating the soundtrack.
Says Shekhar, "The director Anubhav Sinha has such a keen ear for music. He understands ragas, rhythm melody and the format of music composition. Shah Rukh too is very clued to world music. We are creating the kind of global sound in Ra.1 which has never been heard in Indian cinema before."