“The banger of all bangers,” is how Jonita describes “Arabic Kuthu,” one of her playback career’s seminal hits. She recorded the song with composer and singer Anirudh Ravichander as a part of the 2022 Tamil film Beast’s soundtrack. The song has since gone on to become a standout success in both Jonita and Ravichander’s careers, garnering over 1.32 billion cumulative YouTube views and 260 million streams on Spotify.
In an interview shot just ahead of her Anirudh XV Tour with Anirudh Ravichander, Jonita took Billboard India through the process of making the song. She attributed the success of the song to Ravichander’s peppy composition and actors Vijay and Pooja Hedge’s flashy dance moves. “Even the hook step, everyone just starts doing it as soon as the beat kicks. You can’t not,” she said.
She also broke down the deceptively cheeky lyrics for fans. “If you didn’t know, the lyrics are gibberish. I think except for a few parts, the lyrics don’t mean anything. It’s not Tamil or Arabic, even though it sounds like a mix of both,” she explained. This fun detail allowed Jonita to express herself more freely on the song. “It feels very true to who I am. When I sing in a language I don’t know, it’s gibberish to me anyway, so now the listeners get to be in my world,” she added.
Jonita recalls shooting a separate video for the song with Ravichander, likening it to “partying at work.” “We shot a lyrical video for the song a day after recording. I was wearing some headgear and I remember Anirudh wearing some whacky clothes too. He was definitely dressed for the part. I didn’t know what was happening but I was having fun,” she shared.
Jonita’s breakdown of “Arabic Kuthu” is a part of Voice Notes — A Billboard India series where artists revisit the stories behind some defining songs from their repertoire. Episodes of Voice Notes featuring Jonita speaking about “Love Like That”, “Arabic Kuthu”, “The Breakup Song” and “Vida Karo” are now live on Billboard India’s Instagram and YouTube channels.
