Arko defends Habit, says Sidharth Shukla wouldn’t have been happy if his song was left unreleased

Singers Jaan Kumar Sanu, Amit Tandon and actor Shehnaaz Gill had to face trolling after they released tributes to late actor Sidharth Shukla. A certain section on social media felt that they were using the late actor’s name for fame.

Habit, a song featuring the late actor and Gill (his rumoured girlfriend), also released post his death. We ask Arko Pravo Mukherjee, who sung the track along with singer Shreya Ghoshal, about the controversy, and he says, “They (who posed opposition) view it as opportunism. If I use any news to create something on it, it seems opportunistic at a certain level, and I agree.”

Defending Habit, the 38-year-old composer of hit songs such as Nazm Nazm (Bareilly Ki Barfi; 2017) and Tere Sang Yaara (Rustom; 2016), adds, “Almost 50% of this song was done before Sid’s death, and some parts of the video were also shot. I don’t think Sid’s soul, wherever he is, will feel happy that his work is left unreleased. We all would like our work to be released. I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

Mukherjee has seen instances in the past when people tried to use situations to their advantage. “There have been events after which some artistes had tried to cash in on that. That I can understand, but in our case, the song was done much before, it was not after Sid’s passing,” says the musician, who is currently awaiting the release of his singles.

Talking about his upcoming projects, he says, “During the lockdown, I got into deals with labels for a lot of singles, which were earlier kept for films… now the industry is changing so rapidly, so I decided to not hold those songs anymore. You will hear many interesting songs coming out as singles,” he signs off.