The young, hip and talented – and trilingual – Sajjad Hassan is back with a bang. His latest single Gayala Vayala is set to take the local pop charts by storm, with a catchy beat, simple yet effective feel-good lyrics and a crafty music video to boot.
The song talks about life and living out your life the way it’s supposed to. “The words are simple but the meaning is deep. It speaks of achieving the impossible stuff in life by mentioning some of the craziest things to do in a very unique way. In this way it gives out the meaning “Nothing’s impossible and lets enjoy life to the maximum,” explains Sajjad.
The melody for the track was created four years ago by Sajjad himself when he was still schooling in Trinity College, Kandy. The lyrics were written by Manuranga Wijesekara of Rambari fame.
Sajjad worked on the arrangement of his previous tracks, but this time, he says, he got another producer to do it for him in order to add some variety. The job went to none other than Lahiru Perera whose massive hit Rambari is now stuck in practically everyone’s head. Gregory de Silva also worked on the arrangement.
How has the response been, so far? “The response has been really good and I am happy to see the way it has touched the hearts of many people. The video has entered some of Sri Lanka’s top charts like TV Derana , Top Ten , Sirasa TV’s Rasa Risi Gee and Swarnawahini and Max TV as well,” he says.
The video for Gayala Vayala is unique in that, apart from being colourful and full of eye candy, it uses several cartoon characters that were very popular in Sri Lanka back in the ‘90s. There is one scene where the camera zooms out of Earth and we see Bugs Bunny on the moon calling Sajjad on the phone.
“I wanted characters that were always loved. Dosthara Honda hitha, Bugs bunny and Madol Doowa are loved by many of all age groups, and will remind them of their younger days. The effect of this came with the video which was Jude Bandara’s idea to show the camera moving to space, to the moon and a rabbit speaking from a telephone box which is something very unique,” he says.
Gayala Vayala is the first music video ever to come out from Sajjad’s own production house Studio SH.
“It was a huge task for me because we had to plan it from scratch and a lot of time was spent pre-planning. I got Jude Bandara who has loads of experience in the music video industry to direct it and my assistants Dinesh and Dilshan played a huge role in the production. Chaminda at Creative Eye handled the post production,” says Sajjad, gratefully.
Sajjad is currently making arrangements to launch his debut album. “Lyricists like Nilar N. Cassim ,Chandana Cooray , Lahiru Mudalige, Chathura Geethanath Bandara , Dylan Gamage will be writing new ones for me,” he says.
Sajjad is making plans to release a completely Tamil version of Kadaliye for release in Tamil Nadu, where there is a growing interest for Tamil music hailing from Sri Lanka.
“After the success of the Sinhala version of Kadaliye, I thought of doing a full Tamil version of it eyeing the south Indian market. The video is to be re-edited accordingly. I’m also planning to release the remake of “Mata Kiyanna Nam Epa” which was rearranged by Ranga Dassanayake to be released when the album comes out. The song is full of live instruments.
It was composed by me, Nilar N. Cassim handled the Sinhala Lyrics while Jaliya Wijewardena handled the English Lyrics. Also planning to release an English song written by Jaliya Wijewardena some time soon,” he says.
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