February was a sad month for music lovers as two legendary singers left for heavenly abode. On February 6, Lata Mangeshkar passed away in a city hospital. People were not yet done grieving her demise, when we lost another gem - the disco king Bappi Lahiri.
In an exclusive interaction with ETimes, singer Benny Dayal opened up about them. He said, ''I would definitely want to say that we really miss Lata Mangeshkar Ji and Bappi Da. The word ‘loss’ is also too small; like a part of our life has gone missing. Their existence has given us so much art and music that we still continue living with. These are the kind of legendary musicians who will never be forgotten in our lives—we will pass their work on from generation to generation.''
When asked how he stays relevant in the remix generation, he said, ''I think you should stay true to yourself. I think people can smell bullshit from very far away, so if you don’t stay real, people just get it easily. When you try to become someone who you are not, that's when you become irrelevant.''
Benny also revealed how the pandemic affected him and his fellow musicians. He said, ''It was definitely difficult doing concerts like the way we used to do. With the industry not recording songs, for us, we felt like at this time, it's good to evaluate your musicianship and what you are doing. So, everybody started making unprofessional, fun music to keep the mind occupied, and at the same time, putting out some form of music for the audience to enjoy because that was all that was there. Everything was shut, and there was no new music coming out at that time.
Showing us the positive side, he stated, ''Personalities like Yashraj Mukhate have been saving grace. They made really fun stuff to cheer everybody up through social media. Even I was into that vibe and open to collaborating with any musician that I had never worked with or had any platform. We were happy something new was coming out for people. That’s exactly how I dealt with the pandemic. Then, of course, things opened up in between, although it closed again. But I am glad that now we are open again.''
