Mirror Magazine

Mirror Magazine

Turning on the heat in Serbia
By Marisa de Silva
Local pop sensations Bathiya & Santhush lost the top spot to Serbian pop star Maya Nokolich by a small margin of just four points in the recently concluded ‘IV International Pop Music Festival’ – “Sun Flower 2003”, held in Serbia & Montenegro. The local pop duo were accompanied by their back-up singers Ashanthi De Alwis and Nevanthi Pieres singing ‘Life - in the new millennium’ at the final.

The 14-member panel of judges comprised six from Serbia and the rest from countries such as UK, Russia, Cyprus etc. The awarding of marks was done electronically on a giant screen, where each judge came up on stage and displayed his/her scores on the screen. When the 13th judge’s results went up on the screen, B&S seemed to be in first place, but unfortunately for them, the last judge awarded four extra points to Nokolich, which cost the duo the top spot.

However, the story doesn’t quite end there, because the management that accompanied the UK delegation to the competition had been so impressed by B&S that they spoke on their behalf to FOX Records and asked them to meet with the record company on their way back home. After meeting with the top officials of FOX on their return through London, FOX confirmed that they would like to work with B&S but were still on the look out for parties interested in producing their music.

If the project comes through, it could be a huge breakthrough not just for the duo but also for the entire local music industry. As Santhush says “There is hope for our music out there.” The main board at FOX had insisted on hearing them perform live. Luckily for them, there had been a ‘Party in the Park’, where they sang to a crowd of around 4000 people. Fox officials had been happy with what they’d seen and agreed to go ahead with a project to introduce B&S sounds to the European market, in the event that they find a production company.

Their song “Ran Dunuke Mala Se” had been a hit with the other artistes as well, say Bathiya and Santhush. Every day, in between or after the day’s proceedings, all the artistes would gather in the lobby and sing together. During one of these sessions, when B&S were singing “Ran Dunuke Mala Se” the catchy sounds had fascinated the others. A few days later most of the other artistes were singing along with them.

All participants were expected to perform an original that had never before been released in the Serbian region. Each country had successfully managed to blend their own authentic sounds with that of the west but there was a distinct difference between their music and ours, said Santhush.

“Artistes from the South East Asian region have an inferiority complex as to whether their music will be accepted by the foreign market,” says Santhush. Bathiya and Santhush are hence delighted that they won the ‘Public Voting’ category hands down.

On a more serious note, they found Serbia politically similar to Sri Lanka, as both are post-war countries. But the Serbs live life to the fullest, they believe. The people take time off to chill out, they said. Little things that we could learn from them, it seems.
“We need to build and sustain a positive image of our country abroad,” they say. More local artistes should take the initiative to venture into the international arena and introduce our music to the world according to this successful duo.

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