Salim Merchant Says Priyanka Chopra Jonas Singing Career Started In Their Studio | Bollywood

MUMBAI – We discovered this nugget while sailing. In the “Bombay Times” edition of July 17, we found a report in which Salim Merchant of the musical duo Salim-Sulaiman claimed that Priyanka Chopra Jonas’ professional and international musical career began because of them.

“Not many people know that prior to becoming a bona fide popstar, Priyanka Chopra Jonas sang a song for her movie “Pyaar Impossible!” (2010). Unfortunately, the piece she had sung for the music composers Salim and Sulaiman Merchant never saw the light of day, ”begins the feature film.

In the story, Salim says, “It all started when we were making the music for ‘Pyaar Impossible! Jonas’ character in the movie was called Alisha and we had a song by that name. I told the director, Jugal Hansraj, that Priyanka sings, so let’s make her sing that song. When we told her we wanted her to sing for the movie, she was nice and recorded it. However, she was not comfortable with the recording and told me that it would be nice if we could have another singer for it. I couldn’t understand why she felt like this because she sang pretty well. Anushka Manchanda later dubbed the song.

Chopra apparently told Salim later, “I was made to do something bigger, like an international album. I don’t want to appear as a singer in a Bollywood movie. A few months later, Salim claims to have received a call from an international music label while their team was in town and wanted to meet the duo as they had already done a Lady Gaga remix for them.

When told they were looking for an Indian singer, who could make the cut internationally, he messaged Chopra, who the team had already shortlisted. He adds that the star performed a popular English song in their studio and also sang before them. So he claims that a different phase of his career started from there and that “the foundation for it all was laid right here in my studio in Mumbai”.

For the record, Chopra would have sung a word or two in “Bluffmaster!” before that and later in “Mary Kom” and “Dil Dhadakne Do”.