Madhan Karky, one of the busiest lyricists in Tamil cinema, has missed out on nearly 40 projects in the last one year.
And he’s not complaining. That’s because he has been busy with the quirkily-titled DooPaaDoo, a venture that seeks to be a platform for popular musicians to showcase their non-film concepts.
A year ago, Karky thought of creating a song bank. “I was mulling over having a bank of non-film songs that could be played to prospective directors/producers who could choose stuff they like,” he explains, “It was around the same time that Kauntheya, a friend, discussed the need to create a social networking platform for musicians.”
They sat together to flesh out the idea. And from it was born DooPaaDoo.
“We researched on what was going wrong in the music industry; why non-film songs were not popular and why even popular songs weren’t getting enough money,” he says. DooPaaDoo, he feels, will bring back cheer to musicians. “Apart from being a platform for their work, the creators own their songs… and through the different revenue streams, the money earned will go directly to their bank accounts.”
That’s not all… there’s something for listeners too, who get paid for listening to the songs on the site that hosts exclusive musical content. Users who sign in get paid at an internal wallet, depending on their views for a song, and once it reaches a certain threshold, it can be converted into Paytm money. “Every time there’s a song, there is an ad…. and the listeners get 10 per cent of the revenue,” explains the lyricist.
Karky has roped in 60 top music composers from the industry already; A.R. Rahman is composing a song, younger composers like Santhosh Narayanan and Anirudh too are. “We’re looking at releasing one song per day,” he reveals.
The first of the lot, to be released today along with the launch, will be a song by late music composer M.S. Viswanathan. “His family will get royalty for that song,” says Karky, who hopes the site will also eventually be a go-to destination for directors in search of tunes for their scripts.
The lyricist already has many plans for the future with respect to this venture. Karky also hopes to stage events, inviting users and creators to discuss the songs. “I hope DooPaaDoo becomes a small, bold step against piracy,” he says.
