Another kolaveri in the making?

If you thought that the Dhanush song Why this Kolaveri di was the only video that was breaking all YouTube records and was going viral on the Internet, you thought wrong. Hiphop Tamizha, a band which has Chennai-based Tamil hip hop musicians and rappers, is certainly grabbing eyeballs on the Internet. When the founder of the hip hop network, Adhi, and rapper and beatboxer Bharadwaj Balaji aka BBB, were invited to a popular radio show, they performed one of their most popular tracks Clubulla Mabbu. The video that someone recorded at a city radio studio was uploaded on the radio station’s website.“Our fan Yogendar Das posted the video on You- Tube and Facebook on the evening of November 19,” informs Adhi.What the video managed to do was not only get featured on the homepage of YouTube India below Why this Kolaveri di, (it still has managed to hold on to its place there!) but also get a whopping number of 54,000 shares on Facebook and 75,000 views on You- Tube by the end of the first 48 hours. “Over 50,000 shares within two days -- we never expected that!” exclaims BBB. As on November 25, Clubulla Mabulla had over 2,05,000 hits and over one lakh shares on Facebook, with the numbers continuing to steadily rise.“I had no idea about it until later that night on November 19 and when I did check the video, it already had 317 views on YouTube and 217 shares on Facebook,” he says. BBB and Adhi were content with what their video did in the first couple of hours of its presence online and little did they know that they were on their way to creating an amateur video revolution.Adhi shared the video on his Facebook page before calling it a day. When he woke up the next morning, it took him more than a few minutes to fathom what stared back at him from his computer screen. “The video had 25,000 viewswhen I woke up that day and by the end of the day, it had 38,600 shares on Facebook and 44,000 hits on You- Tube,” says Adhi in almost disbelief. “We thought of it as some sudden online craze and left it at that. We never expected anything more,” he adds.“After the video went viral, we have had five record labels asking us to sign with them and even got a couple of movie offers,” says an excited Adhi.“It is all very exciting and tempting, but we are not going to take up any movie offers right now as we are focusing on our album. We want to prove that independent artistes can also shine without the help of cinema,” he says, but not without pride. But do they feel that Kolaveri might have stolen their thunder a bit? “Kolaveri is an official film song and for us to achieve a percentage of what they did with an unofficial amateur video is a great thing,” says Adhi, diplomatically.Makapa Anand, the popular Radio Mirchi RJ, who hosted a Hiphop Tamizha interview also happens to feature in the video. “I was the first one who had them on my show, after which many other people began inviting them. I love all their songs, especially those from their upcoming album and also their youth election anthem,” he says, excited for the band.Anand, who seemed to have no trouble remembering the lyrics of the song, is also obviously a fan. “I am very happy for them, but I hope Adhi changes his mind and takes up movie offers,” he says. Well, at least for this song, we know a good reason why it went viral.