DJ Shadow Dubai On Collaborating with Lil Pump, Honey Singh, Jason Derulo and Writing an Autobiography

In the fast-paced world of remixes, mash-ups and EDM, DJ Shadow Dubai aka Satheerth Kunneth took three months just on pre-production for his latest song “Casanova.” It wasn’t just because star artists like American rapper Lil Pump and India’s Yo Yo Honey Singh were going to lead the party track. As it turns out, film producers Gaurang Doshi and Rocky Khan had approached the DJ to score music for an upcoming Hindi web series called 7th Sense. “They were working on this song as if they were working on a movie,” DJ Shadow Dubai says.

The composer-producer then went on to pitch and create “Casanova” as a promotional track, along with seven more songs for the series. “It was just a process that was completely new to me,” he says. For starters, “Casanova” involved the DJ flying to Miami to spend time in the studio with Lil Pump and his team, plus a visit to Mexico. “Then we approached Honey Singh, he heard the beat and loved it. Lil Pump loved it as well,” he adds.

DJ Shadow Dubai – and it’s important to spell this out because there’s a stalwart DJ Shadow aka Joshua Paul Davis who’s been at it since the Nineties in the U.S. hip-hop world – can say a lot of these things in a straightforward manner. After all, he’s created music that goes with voices like Pitbull, Badshah, Guru Randhawa, Sean Paul and several others. He’s got an upcoming track with American pop artist Jason Derulo (“he’s dropped a few words in Hindi,” DJ Shadow Dubai says) and claims to have hip-hop artist Rick Ross on another track. “I think most artists are just looking for something fresh and we just need to explore different music,” the DJ says about working with topline artists and labels. With “Casanova,” he says the key was to get both Yo Yo Honey Singh and Lil Pump to bring a similar vocal style to the song. “Even though Lil Pump has had completely different styles on his earlier songs, we wanted to make sure that he complimented Honey, and vice versa,” the producer adds.

While the artist’s music videos have been all glitz overdose, DJ Shadow Dubai does mention his roots have been a lot less glamorous. “About 10 years ago, when I had my first album and I flew down to Bombay, I was sitting outside label offices for six hours, not knowing anyone in the industry. That’s how it started,” he says. That’s where being a Dubai resident helped, in terms of aspirations. “Everything Dubai does, they do it in a big way. It’s taught me to dream big and work hard to achieve it,” the DJ adds.

The rest of the journey from Dubai to the Indian music industry and performing all around the world is all being captured in his upcoming autobiography, called LSD [Love. Sex. Drugs] Confessions by DJ Shadow. “I used to write journals of how my shows were and what happened at the parties and stuff like that,” he says. During the Covid pandemic and lockdown, a low-spirited DJ Shadow Dubai saw these journals again and began re-reading all of it for positive reinforcement. “If it inspired me to get back and produce this kind of music back again, I’m sure it would inspire others as well. And that was the main thought behind the book,” he says.

The next big leap comes with the Jason Derulo song, which also features singer Harnoor and video appearances by actors such as Urvashi Rautela and Erica Fernandes. “It’s quite a big project and it’s a huge song. It should be out in September. I think it would be one of the biggest songs of the year. It’s different from what Jason has done in the past. It’s more of a love ballad than a dance track… it doesn’t fit into one genre either,” DJ Shadow Dubai adds.

Later on, he’s hoping to see Lil Pump in India. While a couple of shows were originally planned in April this year, the “Gucci Gang” rapper is slated to make his debut in the country with performances at the Timestamp Festival on November 5th and 6th in Delhi NCR and Mumbai. “He’s just super excited to visit India. And I’m excited to probably host him when he comes to India.”

Watch the video for “Casanova” by DJ Shadow Dubai, Lil Pump and Yo Yo Honey Singh below.