Bahraini musician Hussam Aseem, better known as Flipperachi, is taking his success from Manama to Mumbai, building on the success of his song Fa9la, which has gone viral amongst Indian audiences around the world.
During an interview with the GDN, Flipperachi hinted at more collaborations and projects in the works, as new audiences discover tracks from across his discography after his song took TikTok and other social media channels by storm.
“Fa9la going viral in India led to my music being discovered by a whole new audience,” Flipperachi explained. “All my tracks actually went up in numbers, including songs like Hayalla Min Yana (Arabic for Welcome, visitor) and Ee Laa (Arabic for ‘to’).”
The 36-year-old rapper recently announced an India tour, with one confirmed appearance on March 14 at the UN40 Music Festival in Bengaluru, and another three dates to be announced soon.
Although Fa9la was released in 2024 to regional popularity, its international prominence began after it was used as an entrance soundtrack in the Indian movie Dhurandhar featuring Bollywood superstars Akshay Khanna and Ranveer Singh.
The film is currently not being shown in Gulf cinemas as a result of its politically sensitive content portraying Indian intelligence operations inside Pakistan, however this hasn’t stopped the tune from becoming a backing track for people to share slices of their life.
“It hasn’t stopped the song from going viral here as well,” Flipperachi explained. “People everywhere are creating TikToks and Reels whether they’re dancing, creating a remix, or singing to the track. I’ve been loving watching all of these videos, and there’s more than 10 million of them!”
Fa9la was originally written as a party anthem, with its name translating in Bahraini slang to ‘fun time’, however, in Dhurandhar, it is used to introduce Mr Khanna, who plays a villain in the movie.
“When we made this track the idea was to do something fun and light with references people will catch, in the region at least,” he explained. “This automatically worked on TikTok when the song first came out and went viral in 2024.
“The song is definitely a party track but it does have a bit of darkness to it in the production, and the production team had a great ear for it when they selected the song for the film scene,” Flipperachi added.
The Bahraini rapper is known for his use of Bahraini and Khaleeji slang. Although he confessed, at first he thought it might prove an obstacle, considering that the Bahraini dialect is different from other Arabic dialects, but now he doesn’t see it as a limitation to attracting new fans.
“We listen to music in languages we don’t understand all the time like Korean, Latin, etc,” he added. “Language isn’t necessarily a barrier if the listeners are feeling the vibe of the song, and Fa9la proved that as well.”
Flipperachi has been involved in Bahrain’s music scene since the early 2000s and has collaborated with international names like The Game and Shaggy. However, the viral fame that Fa9la and Dhurandhar brought has been unparalleled.
It has also been special for the Bahraini rapper, because of Indian movies and music having been a core part of his childhood growing up in the kingdom. “I love the Indian culture,” he explained. “It’s been an integral part of our culture growing up, and we all grew up watching Bollywood movies and listening to Indian music. There’s a lot of artists I like and listen to, but one of my favourites right now is Param.”
In another interview, Flipperachi had listed Indian music stars Param and Badshah as ‘dream collaborators’ however, any specific collaboration has not been confirmed so far.
When asked about the future, Flipperachi was coy, adding that there are ‘multiple projects including singles and possibly an album’ in the works, as well as collaborations with regional and Indian artists.
naman@gdnmedia.bh
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