While the music industry might be under the impression that
Bhojpuri music sees high physical sales, the local labels, entrenched in the
trade, say otherwise. Viewed and presented as raunchy, explicit and vulgar, the
genre is today caught in a cusp of transition of format from physical to
digital and is yet to widen its appeal to cater to its target audience.
Divya Naik gets to the crux of the business to understand the
real picture
It’s 2.30 am in the urbane city of Mumbai. A young gang of girls
is intrigued by the music video being played on their television screen. The
name of the show is Mircha Lagal. A
woman dressed in an average, day to day salwar kurti, heavy chested is gyrating
to the song; complete with sexual connotations. Her ‘yaar’ is a poorly endowed
man, almost double her age, with paan smeared across his teeth, lusting after
her, eyeing her from head to toe. The camera movements are such that they
capture just what they must – the pudenda. There is absolute banter among the
young 20 year olds at this frippery.
The above example might as well be an apt instance of the
audience that Bhojpuri music has in areas apart from the hinterland. As our
encounter with the local tapri-wallahs in the seedy locales of Flora Fountain,
Masjid Bunder and Lamington Road in Mumbai have revealed, that the ‘babus’
apart from the taxi and rickshaw drivers also happen to be the prime customers,
purchasing bulk, 10 compilations in one go at times. “Inkepaas kharidne ka capacity hai madam,sirf yeh
babu log khulke nahi kharidenge, unke agents ko bhejte hai,” one of
them reveals on request of anonymity. Aamchi Mumbai is smitten by the Bihari
bug, with small counters being shoved in the lanes of Bandra, Central Mumbai
and North Mumbai as well, where the working class needs their daily dose of
fantasy.
Proof
of the fact that why the age group of these consumers falls between 30 to 50
years and obviously constitutes the male population – apart from the
exceptional example given above of the cheeky 20 year old girls.
If you
rewind back almost three to four decades, there could be a pinch of culture
shock that one could experience. Temple music, devotional chants and bhajans
were the essence of the Bhojpuri music scenario. Singer Kalpana Patowary takes
us for a walk down memory lane, “Harmonium and tabla were the accompanying
instruments, everything was very raw unlike the huge orchestra set up we have
today. It was the time of devotional boom.”
The turning point happened to be the advent of peppy wedding
songs, which then diversified into many other genres apart from Bhojpuri too.
“Twenty years ago, the film industry started flourishing, but that was only for
a limited period of time,” she adds. The album Gamcha
Bichai Ke released in
2004 was the mode to revival of the film segment. And from thereon, the high
note was hit by the genre with producers from Punjab, Hyderabad and
neighbouring regions showing remarkable interest. The infectious nature of this
viral phenomenon is evident as we notice the ‘bihar ke lalas’ slowly and surely diluting and become
a part of the Bollywood culture too. However, times have changed and how.
Atom Bomb Jawani
One cannot digest an offering from Bihar served without the
festoons of Humri Jawaniya Toofan Mail or Choliyaan Mein Rasmalai.
Would you take note of folk tales or even Hanuman Chalisas?
Of course, it would only make someone frown or raise an eyebrow or two. Kaisan
Ho Sakta Hai Bhaiya! Fascinatingly, a fresher in the industry was
made to croon the first Holi song that came her way which went, “Dheere Dheere Dhal, Pichkari
Nikal” – whose implication dawned upon her much later, causing much
embarrassment.
A noted artist narrates that the image in the mind of most key
music companies is that Bhojpuri songs have the much perceived connotation of, ‘Atom Bomb Jaisi Jawani’
– a term that has stunted the growth of talented young artists who try to cut a
niche for themselves differently. Patowary states, “With my album The
Legend Of Bhikari Thakur, I wanted to rise above the Rs 35 pricing,
prevailing in the market.” Times Music, whom she had approached initially was
unable to understand her requirements, which then made her shift to EMI Virgin.
The album – which threw light over the caste system being a hindrance in the
society – managed to garner enough sales – physically and digitally as well. However,
that doesn’t shift focus from the fact that folk sub-genres such as kajri (once
popular) have lost their patrons, rich literature in Bhojpuri thus becoming
overshadowed.
Audience Analytics
It’s
the migrants; the labour class population, which find their fantasies comes
alive in the crude nature of the lyrics and presentation delivered from the
poor, low cost productions, finding their way through Siliguri and Raxaul, the
border between Nepal and Bihar.
Approximately
270 million people are estimated to speak this dialect all over the world. Even
in these distant lands, with all links from the native culture having dissolved
over time, the Bhojpuri diaspora has sparked new trends in music and
performance, displaying a remarkable cultural dynamism. Gautam Sarkar, DGM –
National Sales Distribution and Publishing, Saregama Music gives more insight
by saying, “Most of the consumption can be seen in Nepal, North Bengal,
Haryana, Delhi NCR, where the population of migrant workers is at its highest.
The hub however, is in Lajpat Nagar Central market followed by Kolkata and
Lucknow.” Cochin too has come up as a market recently with Mauritius and the
Caribbean towns also having a huge consumer base. That doesn’t come as a
surprise since the third language in these regions is Bhojpuri, with a
different dialect. The plantation areas in Fiji have a huge migrant population,
the primary consumers for this genre.
Narrowing
down to India, Kumar Gautam, Chairman at Wave Music Company points out that
Punjab, Gujarat, Mumbai are evolving as consumers in a big manner. “The Gulf
countries too are starting to show increasing demand now.” He adds.
It is
the low spending capacity of this labour class folk that has led to the music
companies pricing the albums as low as Rs 35. “Even music videos being sold in
the physical format are priced at Rs 45 or 50. This market doesn’t have the DVD
format as yet; we are trying to work towards the same,” cites Ajit Kohli,
General Manager, A&R, T-Series. He goes on to reveal that single CD recovery
in this market is a challenge and hence, one has to play up strategies such as
placing products in temples, which helps develop consumer connect. “I must say
that each day the price points are lowering drastically”, Kohli warns.
Divided Dimensions
Following the drastic decline of cultural richness, the market
was salvaged by the uncouth content that we see today. Item songs started
becoming more popular. Sarkar of Saregama Music elaborates, “If you notice,
three years back, Manoj Tewari was all over the place and was extremely
popular. But then, a huge slowdown took place, we haven’t seen a star of that
caliber come up in the market ever again.” Sarkar blames the changing market analytics
for the same. “The consumption has rocketed but the monetisation strategies
aren’t being adapted to suit the same.” The price changes, though constant are
thus not viable for survival.
A
similar tune is hummed by Rhythm House’s Mehmood Curmally who feels that folk
songs need to be exploited than the vulgar content as it has proved to be a
hindrance to the market growth. “It is going the same way as the Punjabi market
but the scope is unexplored. One can see the sales picking up but then formats
are only limited to MP3 and CDs,” he explains. The thought is echoed by most
industry folk, who lament that shops are starting to shut with the web being
the only platform for recoveries. R H Chhatrapati, Vice President – Physical,
Live and Merchandising, Universal Music India SAARC offers a different
perspective by saying; “Demand of visual format is more as compared to audio.
Audio is consumed on mobile and physical format; wherein a lot of physical
audio MP3 format and side loads are done by the retailers selling recharge
coupons to the subscribers.” This is convenient for the most of the people
consuming this music are people on the move / working in the fields.
The
CRBT players have only but witnessed a miniscule percentage of the market
encompassing this genre. OnMobile’s Atul Churamani analyses the genre as not
being a digital player at all, counting it to be less than one per cent of the
CRBT space. Techzone’s Naveen Bhandari generously gives it three to five per
cent of the total market share, by rationalising that there happens to be no
consolidated approach among the music companies who are scattered in the space.
Bhandari further rues that it’s poor quality content, which has become a
problem. “If you look at the genre’s peer group, which has Bengali, Tamil and
Punjabi languages, you will observe that the others are culturally a notch
higher and richer. Bhojpuri on the other hand falls in the C category, its
biggest shortfall to date.”
The Local Light
There
are more than 100 labels and or music aggregators in digital and physical world
for this genre, among whom Moser Baer has become recently active.
All
the relevant players in the industry called for this story had ruled out that
the market for Bhojpuri music is majorly reliant on physical sales. Conversations
with the local music companies and the retailers showcase a different side of
the story. Gautam of Wave Music Company throws light by saying that formats
have changed over time, with most content being available digitally today. “The
listenership and public reach of the genre has widened. What needs to be made
clear is that in comparison to other regional markets the sales are high, but
if we take into consideration the status with an industry view, then I can
safely cite a decline of 80 per cent as opposed to last year.” He believes that
it’s only three to four companies are doing well enough to manage survival.
In
consequence, the space is small today, with the investments of the labels being
low and the purchasing power also being just as less. The nukkads and
tapriwallahs are also the ones blamed by players such as Angle Music, who think
that piracy has been the mean monster, eating into the once-spiralling physical
sales. Dinesh Yadav of Chanda Music feels that stagnation is taking place with only
a handful of teen stars coming up. He sees a 20 per cent decline in sales in
comparison to other regional genres. Yadav reasons by voicing the fact that as
a medium physical can be easily converted to any other format, especially
mobile, leading to the poor trade seen today.
Efforts
however are being taken by the labels to push their products by way of
discounts of 20 to 30 per cent being offered even on a base price of Rs 25.
Mittal Joshi, Proprietor, M4U Music shares that he sees good sales for compilations
of three in one albums. “At least 1,000 to 1,500 units of such MP3 albums are
seen in a day, while 300 to 400 units of films are sold.” The film industry
churns out a movie a week, and four to five movies a month, making the business
smoother.
The Dirty Picture
An
amusing point to be noted is that most Bhojpuri music videos are released with
a (U) or a (U/A) certificate. Sources also state that this applies mostly for
home videos; other content doesn’t even need certification. As Chhatrapati of
Universal Music opies, “Censor certificates are acquired without much issue, as
the local / folk music gets away smoothly as compared to national and
international visual content. The visual content generally is not offensive but
catering to the local need and demands of people of the region.”
Production
of video content has been low key for some years now, with not many dealers
jumping into the fray. Vikas Varma, Partner, Launch Pad – Hummra M, points out
that Bhojpuri as a market has become a blind spot with Punjabi and Bengali
content becoming leaders in the game. The lack of budgets and characteristics
such as packaging and viewer interaction are not being paid enough attention
to, leading to a dearth of non-film content. There is hence, no competition in
the television space with only Mahuaa TV, Humraa TV, Sangeet Bhojpuri and the
latest Anjan TV joining the bandwagon. The direct competition is therefore with
the General Entertainment Channels (GECs), where polished approach to
programming seems to be the need of the hour.
The players have managed to firmly hold their ground and root
themselves by managing to crack into the Bhojpuri Speaking Market (BSM), by
innovating on the content front. Partha Dey, Vice President – Creatives and
Operations, Mahuaa TV, discloses that the channel is coming up with a second
season of Sur Sangram, a music talent hunt involving auditions
for contestants across 24 districts. Dey says that the first season managed
seven television viewer ratings (TVRs) for half an hour, urging the channel to
come up with a music show every quarter to keep up.
Film
content still happens to be the cream of the programming pie, with Mahuaa TV
claiming to have the biggest library, leading the acquisition game for years.
The fraternity thus has 30 to 40 per cent of content culled out from the film
space, with no one wishing to invest in non-film.
There
is however, still scope for more channels to crop up and factors such as high
impact and low cost can be the advantages that they can play their cards on.
“The low cost model is what may work in favour of most investors, else, going
overboard can lead to losses,” advises Verma.
@http://www.soundbox.co.in/bhojpuri-da-tadka/
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