As Honey Singh releases his latest single 'Loca,' looking back at the 'desi kalakaar's 'Sunny Sunny' days

Say what you may about Yo Yo Honey Singh, but for a generation of music lovers, the singer-songwriter-rapper had become synonymous with wild parrrtay anthems and mindless fun. Repeat. Mindless fun. [caption id=“attachment_8117192” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  The MJarvelous Mr Yo Yo Honey Singh[/caption] Singh burst into the music scene in late 2000-early 2010 with his flashy cars, chaar bottles of vodka, women with patli kamar, and a painfully misunderstood notion of the urban youth. His melody was catchy, the videos — shot at exotic locations — were visually captivating, and most of all, the videos teemed with a vocabulary of swear words, which until then, were considered to be too coarse to feature in mainstream media. In a short span of time, Singh charted the dizzying heights of fame, reportedly charging a hefty sum of Rs 70 lakh for a song in Mastaan, which was supposedly the highest fee ever paid to a Bollywood music artiste. _Also read on Firstpost: The biggest problem with Yo Yo Honey Singh: Bollywood’s embrace of him_ But tides were a-changing. Following the horrific 2012 gangrape in Delhi, the singer’s repertoire came under the scanner for its glaring objectification of women and celebration unbridled endorsement of the ‘ booze and babez’ life. Soon after, the singer mysteriously disappeared from the public eye. He later admitted he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder , and was being treated for the same. But in the last 18 months of absence, there has been a steady rise in conversations and awareness on the representation of morally contentious ideas on the celluloid, with  social media hashtags serving as catalysts. Even ‘Makhna,’ which released in 2019, and was considered as Singh’s comeback track, did not find as many takers. To add insult to the injury, he was booked by Mohali police on charges of vulgarity after Punjab Women Commission dubbed the song to be"irreverent towards women." The release of Gully Boy and its subsequent commercial success proved the mainstream was ready to herald a new form of rap — the socially responsible kind. Now that the singer has released yet another single in ‘ Loca,' here is a look at the desi kalakaar’s golden years in the business.   Also read on Firstpost: Honey Singh's 'Makhna' and morality brigade: Prevalent finger-wagging infantilises musician's fan base Dope Shope

It was his 2011 album International Villager, with a sick line of high-tempo songs, that put Singh on the map. While ‘Angreji Beat’ went on to become the LCD-laced party anthem, it was the Punjabi-lyrics heavy ‘Dope Shope’ that became a standard feature in most Indian playlists — be it the big fat Indian shaadi or the mundan. ‘Dope Shope’ was arguably quite vanilla for the evocative Singh. With a liberal peppering of ‘yo-yo’, it was a humble appeal to the kudiye to change up their inebriating habits to accommodate the nasha that is Singh. Blue Eyes

As a millennial trying ever-so-hard to become woke, it feels almost like heartburn to admit ‘Blue Eyes’ featured rather prominently in my mid-2010 playlists. The lazy rap and Honey Singh’s leisurely hip sway made ‘Blue Eyes’ an instant hit. It was reported the song garnered a whopping 2.7 million hits on YouTube four days into its release. The opening paragraph of the song goes as follows: Blue eyes hypnotize teri kardi hai mennu I swear chhoti dress mein bomb lagdii mennu Glossy lips perfect tricks baby lagdii hai tu killerr Oh yeah oh yeah, kill kare teraa bomb figure As far as lyrics were concerned, ‘Blue Eyes’ fit the standard Singh template of the lusty male gaze, with a woman’s physical attributes being oversexed for the sake of titillation. Today, the glaring sexism may, in fact, make us cringe to our bone-marrows. But at the time, many argued it was Singh’s mischief, coupled with a not-so-subtle celebration of self, exemplified by the unforgettable line — “teri principal bhi baby yo yo ki fan hai” — that cemented the position of the track as a classic (and offensive, duh!) woo-the-girl song, behind the likes of ‘Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast’, ‘Jumma Chumma De De,’ ‘Jaadu Teri Nazar’ or the more recent ‘Gandi Baat.’ Brown Rang

If you find it hard to select what to watch on Netflix, try picking one song from Mr Singh’s glorious lineup of party hits that does not refer to booze and babez. But it is ‘Brown Rang’ which takes the cake in being equally snappy and objectionable. The song pointedly rejects certain kinds of women, specifically “white chicks” — he blatantly says, “I don’t like them anymore.” He may now be known as a flagbearer of misogyny in the country,  reports state it was the first Punjabi track to ever trend on YouTube #1. It also went on to snag the spot for most-watched video in 2012, besting PSY’s global hit ‘Gangnam Style.’ Lungi Dance, Sunny Sunny, Party All Night

One of the key reasons behind Singh’s meteoric rise could be attributed to the singer’s masterful straddling of Hindi film music and Punjabi singles. While rap music still featured in several Bollywood films Johnny Gaddar (’Move Your Body’) and Bachna Ae Haseeno (’Lucky Boy’), it had not yet become the commercial Hindi film staple yet. With songs like ‘Lungi Dance’ (Chennai Express), ‘Sunny Sunny’ (Yaariyan)  ‘Party All Night’ (Boss) and ‘Baby Ko Bass Pasand Hai’ (Sultan), Singh was not only creating chart-toppers with immense recall value, he was also shaking a leg with the biggest stars of the Bollywood filmdom. Notwithstanding the booze and babez though, Singh’s foray into Bollywood seemed much more sedate. In ‘Party All Night,’ by iterating “aunty police bula legi” several times during the song, Singh seemed to take a slanted dig at the establishment. ‘Lungi Dance,’ marketed as a tribute to Rajinikanth, was just that — Singh melded all cliches about Tamil Nadu into one whole song that had Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone don Ray-Ban shades and whip some ridiculous dance steps to match the ludicrousness of the lyrics. In times like these, where a rewatch of Dil Se makes one realise how harassment, molestation, and abject dehumanisation of its female lead was passed off as intense romance, revisiting Singh’s unapologetically misogynistic discography may deplete a few (or more) grey cells in one’s brain. But can one really ever disown their basest guilty desires? Can one ever really deny they vehemently nodded their heads in agreement when the ‘gabru’ spit out universal truths — “Saari raat daaru, subah nimbu paani/ Party karne waalon ki hai yehi kahaani?” Can one ever really deny they too shook their head (and booty) to the rhythms of a certain “Ice Cream khaungi, Kashmir jaaongi?” via GIPHY