Their love for Hyderabad, expressed musically, has earned them loads of opportunities, love and friends. Singer/musician Bhanu Prakash and childhood friend Rahul Sharma have created the ‘We Love Hyderabad’ song that celebrates the spirit of Hyderabad, and showcases the city’s blend of tradition and modernity. The song was released recently.
Bhanu Prakash a practicing cost accountant decided to pursue his passion for music and started Ananda Fusion Band four years ago. “We started with fusion but diversified into other genres of music,” he says. While Bhanu Prakash is the vocalist, his brother joined the band as a flautist and with other musicians, the band performs at different corporate and private functions.
On the other hand Rahul, an IT professional, was always drawn towards the concept of storytelling. “I started to write stories with the intent to make short films. In the process of planning for a short film (which never released), I wrote a six-liner song and that’s where it started,” he shares, adding, “During my conversation with a close friend Kamal Kiran, the idea of capturing the beauty of Hyderabad in a short video came up. I shared the thought with Bhanu Prakash and the idea transformed from a footage of Hyderabad to a full-fledged video song that every Hyderabadi around the world could connect to,” points out Rahul.
The song showcases places which Hyderabadis have a special connect with. From sipping Irani chai in hotels and Charminar and Tank Bund to T Hub, the song depicts diverse facets to the city. Rahul observes Hyderabad’s USP is its diversity. “Our main focus was on striking the balance between Hyderabad’s heritage and cultural legacy and also the transformation that has happened in the last two decades. While the first half of the song focuses on the contemporary Hyderabad, the second half depicts the pride and respect towards our heritage and the cultural diversity,” he shares and adds, “We planned the song to be a peppy and catchy number and so we added the rap part. People are appreciating that lyrics and music are complementing each other.”
For Bhanu Prakash, the highlight is the IT minister KT Rama Rao tweeting about the song. “We were planning to tell him and even before that he himself tweeted about the song; we were so excited to see his tweet,” he enthuses. The song is also special because the team worked under a limited budget and resources.
