Benny Dayal is known to be an experimental singer as he creates unique music scores.
The singer-songwriter will be performing for the upcoming music show ‘Unacademy Unwind’ with MTV on the theme Bolly Funk with his band Funktuation.
Prominent names in the music industry like Lucky Ali, Kailash Kher, Sonu Nigam, Badshah and Papon, among others, will also be part of the show.
Elaborating on his participation in the digital show, Benny told in an interview: “I’m really happy to be a part of Unacademy Unwind with MTV because it’s something really new. Normally we artistes are part of so many shows where it’s just about our music in rearranged versions. Here, artistes get to represent a new genre that fits their personality, body of work, and repertoire. I feel this is a brilliant initiative.”
Benny is a prominent multilingual playback singer. After being noticed by A.R. Rahman during a stage show, he started his career in Hindi films with the song “Pappu Can’t Dance” (Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na) in 2008.
Talking about the experience of creating music for the show, he said: “I got to perform with my band and my horn section Funkuation on the Horn Flakes, it was a brilliant collaboration together. We get to do our thing, which we do normally. But I wrote new versions of two of my Bollywood hits and one of my originals. It was a fab experience.”
The singer has popular numbers like “Kaise mujhe” (“Ghajini”), “Rehna Tu” (“Dilli- 6”), “Daru Desi” (“Cocktail”) and “Lat Lag Gayi” (“Race 2”), among many other superhit Bollywood tracks to his credit.
Benny shared that the mood of the soundtracks in the show will be based on a genre called Bolly Funk.
He said: “It’s bringing Bollywood and my funk inspirations and influencers into Bollywood music. The tone of the performance will be highly energetic, and at the same time, it will be a little cheeky and funny. It’s not going to be mellow at all. Of course, we have great melodies in the songs I’m singing, but besides that, it’s going to be super high energy.”
To make the performance unique, Benny mentions the use of a mix of varied instruments in the show.
“There are a lot of different instruments used in the performances. I have played the ukulele in one of my songs. We have bass guitars, drums, lamp percussions, trombones, trumpets, saxophones, and some keyboards. We also have a horn section with three members of a horn section called Horn Flakes,” he said.
Benny Dayal’s band Funktuation’s compositions are a mix of alternative funk, alternative pop, disco, soul, and R&B and are mostly performed in Tamil, Hindi, and English.
Talking about the soul of the band, he said: “The inspiration behind Funktuation is expression through funk, soul, hip hop and R&B kind of sound. We love funk, it’s the originator that came before hip hop and everything.”
He added: “Funk music from so many years has been a huge inspiration in my life. It started with Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, bringing that inspiration and that kind of sound with Bollywood is what we decided for the show. The inspiration is to express through funk music. Everybody thinks funk music is just groovy but there is the groove in many situations and emotions, that’s the inspiration of Funktuation.”
Unacademy Unwind with MTV will start on August 13.
