Sadi Mohammad Shahnewaz

Let us address the elephant in the room first: Coke Studio Bangla is obviously an elaborate advert for Coca Cola. It does not take a genius to come to that conclusion, the enormous Coca Cola logo on top of the stage at Army Stadium yesterday should be enough of a ‘hint’. That being said, what the platform has done to re-ignite interest in our local scene is admirable, only exemplified by thousands of people showing up in droves in Bangladesh Army Stadium yesterday, despite an entire day of incessant rain.

Both of the songs were conceptualized and executed by Team Pritom – a robust group of talented artistes that now act as the think-tank for Pritom Hasan’s unorthodox ideas. “A lot of questions will be answered in the last chapter,” says the singer.

When KK was singing these lines at Kolkata’s Nazrul Mancha on Tuesday, no one could foresee the irony of these words.

India’s history of remaking Hollywood films is shabby at best –the first offenders that come to mind are Jim Carrey’s fantastic performance in “Bruce Almighty” being turned into Salman Khan’s rancid “God Tussi Great Ho”, and the sheer audacity of using the premise of “The Italian Job” to make “Players”.

The image of legendary artistes Runa Laila and Sabina Yasmin being given Lifetime Achievement Awards by an emotional Ferdausi Rahman -- will be immortalised as one of the most meaningful, significant and iconic moments in the history of the Meril-Prothom Alo Awards.

In a line-up full of hard-hitters like Artcell, Black, Cryptic Fate, Arbovirus, Nemesis, AvoidRafa, Mechanix, and Dreek, the most memorable moment was Shakib Al Hasan gingerly singing “Amra Korbo Joy”, much to the elation of the crowd.

As “Chiltey Roud” headed towards its majestic outro, pairing Boga Taleb’s resounding, celestial vocals with Shayan Chowdhury Arnob’s calming delivery – the shehnai playing in the background almost brought me to tears.

Rabindra Sangeet exponent Sadi Mohammad was one of my father’s favourite singers -- so much so that when I was born, I became his namesake. Today is Rabindra Jayanti, the birth anniversary of the Kabi Guru, and also the day that my father reminds me of my ‘origin story’.

‘Shaandar’ Shaan, ‘Golui’ not far behind

From being Vibe’s exciting musical prodigy to a staple of legendary Warfaze, Oni Hasan has accomplished a lot in his musical career.

There are few bands in Bangladesh who are as internationally appealing and well rounded as Chirkutt. The folk rock pioneers will break new ground by performing with Scorpions at Madison Square Garden (MSG), New York at the Golden Jubilee Bangladesh concert, celebrating 50 years of our country’s Independence. We talked to Chirkutt about their preparations, excitement, and thoughts about the concert.

It is difficult to maintain even a semblance of neutrality when a song bewitches you from the second it starts playing – that is what Coke Studio Bangla’s newest release, “Bulbuli”, did to my ‘trained’ musical ear. On the first day of the Bengali New Year, the musical production paid a perfect homage to our National Poet, Kazi Nazrul Islam.

It was 1989 when T W Sainik first came from Nilphamari to Dhaka, as a culturally active young man. Even after two decades of successful work as a cinematographer – more than 500 tele-fictions, 40 TVCs and 4 films, we know the artiste as the voice behind “Tumi Amar Ghum”, a song that captured the hearts of music listeners regardless of taste.

When I was arriving in Phoenix, Arizona last year for my Humphrey Fellowship, I did not imagine that I would get to be a part of one of the most prestigious musical celebrations of the world – the Grammys.

Nuhash Humayun loves making “weird stuff’, as he jokingly phrases it. However, he is objectively one of the most open-to-experiment directors of our time.

Let us get this out of the way first: “Nasek Nasek” was so dynamic, energetic and well-executed musically, that it made it unusually difficult for any song to follow it up.

Bushra Shahriar is at an interesting crossroads in life – the passionate soul is a musician, vlogger, and a PHD student at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. Her latest song, “Eksho Nalish”, released yesterday. We got in touch with Bushra for a small chat over coffee.

It has always been difficult to please everyone, especially in the age of social media -- where everyone feels not only entitled to an opinion, but also entitled to share it regardless of how crude or unfiltered it may be.

The 94th Academy awards were historic, but not in the sense that you are probably thinking.

A rather curious audience, consisting of primarily journalists and media personalities, took their seats in The Daily Star’s A S Mahmud Hall. “Who is Sabrina?” was a question – more of a marketing strategy, to Hoichoi and Ashfaque Nipun’s next project, “Sabrina”.