walking upstream…
Himesh Reshammiya
photo: bollywood hungama · cc by 3.0 ↗Himesh Reshammiya
Himesh Reshammiya is a Mumbai-born singer, composer, and actor who spent nearly a decade writing hits for other voices before turning his own nasal, high-pitched delivery into one of Hindi film music's most divisive and commercially unstoppable signatures. His 2005 breakout as a playback singer on 'Aashiq Banaya Aapne,' followed by the multi-platinum solo album 'Aap Kaa Surroor,' fused emotionally overwrought melody with thumping electronic beats - a formula mocked in the moment and reclaimed decades later as beloved kitsch. Raised in his composer father Vipin Reshammiya's recording studio, he built a catalog running from mid-2000s cap-and-sunglasses spectacle to a fully ironic, embraced 2020s comeback.
the sound in question
2005
Aashiq Banaya AapneHimesh Reshammiya
walk the tributaries ↓
Kishore Kumar1970s · Filmi / Bollywood playback / Indian pop
Himesh has repeatedly pointed to Kishore Kumar as a formative presence - recalling on 'Indian Idol' how Kishore once scrapped a session to relearn a phrase after hearing Lata Mangeshkar's version of a duet, and crediting a Kishore Kumar song he happened to be listening to on a film set with sparking the tune that became 'Cutie Pie' more than a decade later.
listen: upstream & heresource: Radio and Music — 'Kishore Kumar inspiration behind Cutie Pie ↗
1969
Mere Sapno Ki RaniKishore Kumar
2020
Cutie PieHimesh Reshammiya
listen forThe loose, conversational phrasing and readiness to bend a note for feeling rather than technical polish - the same instinct that let Kishore turn an unschooled voice into an era-defining one - surfaces in the playful, sing-speak cadence Himesh drops into on lighter numbers like 'Cutie Pie.'
R.D. Burman1970s · Hindi film music / Filmi / Rock
Himesh's father and earliest mentor, Vipin Reshammiya, worked for decades as a session musician on films scored by R.D. Burman before training his son in the same studio; Himesh later composed 'Balma,' Khiladi 786's 2012 tribute number built explicitly around Burman's musical vocabulary, an overt homage press coverage described as putting 'the iconic R.D. Burman... in the composition' itself.
listen: upstream & heresource: BollySpice — 'Balma' (Khiladi 786) as tribute to R.D. Burman ↗
1975
Mehbooba MehboobaR.D. Burman
2012
Hookah BarHimesh Reshammiya
listen forThe horn-driven, syncopated groove and party-anthem swagger of a Himesh club number like 'Hookah Bar' - stacked brass hits riding a four-on-the-floor pulse - descends from the same funk-inflected orchestration Burman brought to 1970s Bollywood dance numbers like 'Mehbooba Mehbooba.'
Bappi Lahiri1980s–90s · Disco / Filmi / Playback singing / Synth-pop
Himesh directly sampled Bappi Lahiri and Kishore Kumar's 'De De Pyar De' in his own 2011 composition 'Desi Beat,' and his signature synth-driven, dance-floor-first sound - epitomized by the debut album 'Aap Kaa Surroor' - extends the disco-Bollywood fusion Lahiri pioneered a generation earlier as India's 'Disco King.'
listen: upstream & heresource: WhoSampled — 'Desi Beat' samples Bappi Lahiri/Kishore Kumar's 'De De Pyar De' ↗
1982
Yaad Aa Raha HaiBappi Lahiri
2006
Tera SuroorHimesh Reshammiya
listen forThe pulsing analog-synth bassline and four-on-the-floor beat underpinning a track like 'Tera Suroor' - melody riding on top of an unapologetically electronic dance groove rather than orchestral strings - is the direct throughline from Lahiri's early-1980s disco-filmi sound to Himesh's 2000s dance-pop.