Identifying 26-year-old Yashraj Mukhate by his short dialogue-music mashup Rasode Mein Kon Tha is easier than with his name. The music director couldn’t agree more. He feels immensely happy that during the lockdown his parody memes were a source of entertainment. He says, “It became a turning point in my career. I was doing something to break the monotony of the content people had been consuming. I chose Kokila Ben’s Rasode mein kaun tha dialogue from the popular serial Saath Nibhaana Saathiya because I felt viewers were consumed by that scene.”
Yashraj says that his decision to do Rasode mein kaun tha changed his life and shaped his career in music . “My life changed. From being a music director from Aurangabad who creates jingles for brands and corporates, I was being talked about for my viral dialogue-music mashups. The quirky content has garnered over 7.7 million followers, been shared by celebrities and because of that, I I finally met my greatest music icon AR Rahman Sir! This wouldn’t have been possible two decades ago. Now, thanks to social media and the internet, every creative person has his or her own audience.”
Yashraj, who sings, writes lyrics and gives music tutorials, recently won the Changemakers award hosted by OTTplay App.
When he released his version of Jhoome Jo Pathaan, Vishal Dadlani not only commented on it on social media but requested him to recreate the full song and invited him for future collaboration.
Yashraj’s mashup, however, wasn’t just a 2020 thing; he had been experimenting since 2019. “After my video went viral, I was constantly looking to meet everyone’s expectations. When I saw people sharing and re-sharing my mashups with captions like ‘he is back with another one’, I felt I should not disappoint my followers.”
Yashraj Mukhate | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Post-lockdowns, when normalcy was restored, Yashraj decided to stop making mashups. “I knew it was time to look at different things. Plus after I was offered work as a music director for OTT projects, I had to concentrate on different levels of creativity.” Yashraj has collaborated with brands like Pepsi, KFC India, Vivo India, Oreo, Netflix India and Zee5.
Can the music director be called a one-man army? “Almost, I take help from a mixing engineer for good sound quality when using Indian instruments. Otherwise, I am pretty much self-taught. I have grown up seeing my dad sing, who is also a self-taught singer.”
So did he actually meet Rupal Patel, aka Kokila Ben? Was she happy with the mash-up? “I met the entire team of Saath Nibhaana Saathiya. They were very happy with my creativity,” he laughs.
