Is Besharam Rang from Pathaan a copy of Jain's Makeba? Is it inspired by African Amapiano genre?

Besharam Rang, the new track from the upcoming SRK-starrer Pathaan has amassed 2 crore views ever since it dropped on YouTube yesterday. But ever since its release, listeners have been finding Vishal-Sheykhar’s (Shekhar is now Sheykhar apparently) music to be eerily similar to the 2015 dancepop hit Makeba by French singer-songwriter Jain.

Makeba, which many would have heard on a popular Levi’s commercial, is produced by French beatmaker Yodelice and largely draws upon the African music subgenre known as Amapiano. In fact, the very title of the song is a reference to legendary South African vocalist and activist Miriam Makeba, who is largely associated with Afropop and jazz music. 

Amapanio which translates as “pianos” in Zulu, emerged as a style of electronic house music that can be traced back to South Africa in 2012. Synths and percussion-driven basslines characterise such songs with music critics largely calling it a hybrid of deep house and jazz music. 

So, even though the late Miriam Makeba might not have contributed to new-age Amapiano music, her earlier attempts at blending jazzy and electronic influences did leave an impact on the genre, an influence that even reached overseas as can be seen from Jain’s mainstream popularity. 

The funky house beats and basslines in Besharam Rang sound so similar to Makeba’s electro-influenced Amapiano style that Twitter is calling this yet another attempt by Bollywood to plagiarise global music.

Be it the disgraced Anu Malik stealing the Israeli national anthem and even the Birthday song to Pritam using a Korean track for Race’s Pehli Nazar Mein, the Hindi film industry has been a repeat offender in this regard. 

However, to join the other side of the debate, the alleged “plagiarism” doesn’t seem that obvious as some of Besharam Rang’s elements might come off as generic electronic tropes. There’s also a Spanish intro and outro sung by Vishal Dadlani for some reason which can distract the listener from the Makeba-like beats, along with a touch of vintage Bollywood-like violins in between. 

Vishal-Sheykhar has not come out with a response even though Twitter is busy grilling the music composer duo, asking for Jain to be credited.