Give a break to the King of Crass-Yo-yo Honey Singh

 The other day, I happened to read an article by one of those annoying parents who kept ranting on and on about how Yo-Yo Honey Singh had degraded our culture with his crass.  The tone of the letter is dripping with sarcasm. He was lamenting about how his 5-year old kid was being ‘exposed’ to the side effects of Vodka.  He goes on to thank Mr Singh for his contribution to music by providing us with soulful lyrics and lilting melodies. Ill leave it for you to read the entire letter here :

http://www.hindustantimes.com/entertainment/music/thanks-for-the-crassness-an-open-letter-to-honey-singh-from-a-parent/article1-1242802.aspx

Now don’t I just love taking the case of such people. SO that’s exactly what Im going to do. Mr Parent, let me take you back 10-12 years. Please read the lyrics of a song called PIMP by a singer named 50 Cents. This song became an all time hit and in many ways paved the way for more such stuff:

I don't know what you heard about me
But a bitch can't get a dollar out of me
No Cadillac, no perms, you can't see
That I'm a motherfuckin' P I M P

I don't know what you heard about me
But a bitch can't get a dollar out of me
No Cadillac, no perms, you can't see
That I'm a motherfuckin' P I M P

Now shorty, she in the club, she dancin' for dollars
She got a thing for that Gucci, that Fendi, that Prada
That BCBG, Burberry, Dolce and Gabana
She feed them foolish fantasies, they pay her 'cause they wanna

I spit a little G man, and my game got her
A hour later, have that ass up in the Ramada
Them trick niggas in her ear sayin' they think about her
I got the bitch by the bar, tryin' to get a drink up out her

Got that?OKAYYY GREATTT.. Now lets go 20 years ago . The lyrics below are from Emimem, no doubt a cult singer with exceptionally meaningful lyrics (and I mean it when I say that) but look at the incredibly floral vocabulary:

Hi, my name is, my name is
(What? Who?)
My name is Slim Shady…
Hi, my name is, my name is
(Huh? What?)
My name is Slim Shady

Ahem, excuse me
Can I have the attention of the class
For one second?

Hi kids, do you like violence?
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)
Wanna see me stick Nine Inch Nails
Through each one of my eyelids?
(Uh, huh)

Wanna copy me and do exactly like I did?
(Yeah, yeah)
Try 'cid and get fucked up worse that my life is?
(Huh?)

My brain's dead weight, I'm tryin' to get my head straight
But I can't figure out which Spice Girl I want to impregnate
(Umm)
And Dr. Dre said, "Slim Shady you a basehead"
Uh, uhh, So why's your face red? Man you wasted…..

And so on and so forth. Do you remember any of this stuff, I’ll bet you do. Aah now you’ll tell me those were different? Really, were they? ‘Hi kids do you like violence, wane see me stick nine inch nails through my eye-lids’ is heaven right??? Or better still  'I spit a little G man, and my game got her. A hour later, have that ass up in the Ramada’ THESE ARE GOSPEL, RIGHT?  We grew up to these in case you didn’t notice.

And you really believe that Bollywood and the Indian Music scenario were patron saints before the arrival of Mr Yo-yo??? Let’s take a look,shall we? You thank Mr Singh for making Sarkailo Khatiya and Choli ke peeche sound like a bhajan!!! Excuse meeeeee!!! Those songs were bhajans even at that time. This is what I call selective amnesia. That was a period when Bollywood was churning our more double meaning songs than India was churning out newborns. Not to mention suggestive dance steps.

·         Have you seen Govinda’s dance steps for aa- aah-eeh from Raja Babu???

·         Have you heard a song called Gutur Gutur from the movie Dalaal. Mind you, this one was on the top of Superhit Muqable for a long time??

      Have you seen and heard ANil Kapoor and Juhi Chawla gyrate to 'main maal gaadi tooh dhakka laga'???

·         And pray, have you heard ANY of Dada Kondke’s songs???

 These are just a drop in the ocean of slush and filth that Bollywood has inherited over the decades. Oh and wait, how can I forget the infamous Bhojpuri ‘humari bhaujayee tumhari lugaai’ kind of songs and movies that not just prevail but thrive as much today as they did several years ago.

The problem does not lie with Mr Yo-yo. The problem lies with people like you who want a scapegoat simply because you find it difficult to ‘control’ your children. You feel that your child might get influenced by Yo-yo’s songs but he won’t get influenced when Salman Khan holds Jacqueline Fernandez’s skirt by his teeth? Or when Kareena sways suggestively to ‘Halkat Jawaani’? or when three idiotic actors sing and dance to ‘second jawaani’ from Cocktail?????

Give me a break or better still give yourself one. Objectification of women has been an evil in society for a long time but I’ll leave that debate for another day.  But if you’re going to blame poor Yo-yo Honey Singh for the contaminating today’s music world, then I’m asking you, what is left to contaminate? So no matter how eloquently you express your apparent lack of faith in yo-yo’s songs, and no matter how intense your sarcasm, the fact of the matter is that you cannot kill what's already dead. And one last thing, don’t fret about your elder son not appreciating a Madan Mohan classic. It’s not his fault, it’s yours. Why? Because he had his guard up the moment you tried to wean him away from Yo-yo’s songs so even if he did like it he would never have admitted it. Think you’re smart? Sorry, kids are smarter.