Delhi-based DJ-producer duo MadStarBase aka Neal Sekhri and Anant Ahuja have signed a deal with Saregama to officially release four remixes of classic Hindi film songs that the pair first put out as bootlegs. Their takes on R. D. Burman’s ‘Piya Tu’ from Caravan (1971) and ‘Dum Maaro Dum’ from Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1972), Laxmikant-Pyarelal’s ‘Om Shanti Om’ from Karz (1980)—which they’ve titled ‘Meri Umar’—and Viju Shah’s ‘Saat Samundar’ from Vishwatma (1992), are being released via the label over the course of June.
They’re just a few of MadStarBase’s “Mollywood” series of remixes of Bollywood cuts that have found a global audience through their own sets as well as those by the likes of Diplo, DJ Craze, and Nina Las Vegas; radio shows; and platforms like TikTok and YouTube. Their viral version of ‘Mehbooba Mehbooba’ from Burman’s soundtrack for Sholay (1975), for instance, has tallied millions of streams on YouTube despite multiple takedowns and re-uploads.
That remix—along with those of Burman’s ‘Wada Karo’ from Aa Gale Lag Jaa (1973), and Biddu’s ‘Aap Jaisa Koi’ and Kalyanji-Anandji’s ‘Laila O Laila’ from Qurbani (1980)—was ultimately released through Universal Music, which owns the rights to those OSTs and with whom MadStarBase signed a similar deal in 2024. We interviewed the duo about how they have managed to convert their bootlegs into official releases through the two labels whose catalogues include the majority of the songs they’ve remixed so far.
Building online buzz
“We made these four tracks [released with Saregama] between 2015 and 2020. ‘Piya Tu’ was one of the first edits we ever made. We started playing them around 2016 onwards. [Seeing] the crowd reaction, we kept making more and playing them more. They were taken down from the major platforms once they started getting lots of plays. They made a splash on TikTok [on which they] went viral and were heavily used [by creators] in Tier-III and Tier-IV cities. We were issued copyright takedown notices from the platform backends, not legal notices from the labels.”
Lucking out with a label deal
“A year or two passed since the initial strike downs of the songs on major platforms, and then Universal Music India reached out to us saying they wanted to officially release the remixes. This was unexpected but encouraging so we worked that out with them first. After that, we proactively reached out to Saregama and shared the approach taken by Universal. The only difference [between the deals] is that Universal reached out proactively, and that sort of gave us the blueprint to take to Saregama.”
Advice for other artists
“Be arrogant and be raw. There’s no right or wrong way of making a bootleg. If your authenticity shows through the track then you’re doing it the right way. Also, some songs don’t need remixes (or more remixes).”
Music Ally’s take: Indian legacy labels are increasingly mining their back catalogues to remix, interpolate and remake old hits so that they find a new audience (even if this can occasionally create its own set of complications; see here and here). For these labels, partnering with an act such as MadStarBase that has already garnered an audience for their reworkings of classics makes both logical and—though the duo declined to share the specifics of their deals—business sense. “Maybe labels are realising this is one avenue to engage in a healthy way with dance music culture and the youth,” says the duo.
