Our very own ‘Tap-Some-Bong by Night’

There are all kinds of singers and performers. And then there are those who do something to warrant an entire write-up about themselves. This man has been doing that something for a while now at Opus- and with such elan! Vivek Madan applauds Opus's very own superstar-mixer-dancer-rapper boy. Read on.

No doubt most of us have heard/seen/heard of the famous Russel Peters line on Chinese Superheroes.

Well, we have our own Superhero, right here at Opus.

First time you see him, you see what everybody else does; a quiet, bespectacled boy with floppy hair and knapsack and you think, “Ok. Geek.” Well he is. Bharat Krishna is a software engineer by profession and an IIT Chennai graduate to boot. He works at the Bank of America and finishes work by about 7 PM or so and if it happens to be a Wednesday, he finds his way to Opus for the Kroaknight.

And that’s when you see the transformation occur.

‘Bharat Krishna by day and BARRY by night’.

“Typical Chennai attitude”, you think. “Bharat calling himself Barry to make people think he’s cool.”

But when he gets on stage and picks up that mike, “Barry” is not cool enough. The man is a musical genius; not only can he sing, he also mixes his own tracks. Most of which are remixes of Tamil, Arabic and English songs. The permutations and combinations he achieves with his mixes are just something else. I mean, who would even think that ‘Aicha’, ‘Pettai Rap’ and ‘Summertime’ would make a mixable mix? Pick up the KroaKING Season I CD to find out. (I’m on it too… Track 5)

And it’s not just like, you know, he sings in one corner with a music stand in front of him. He knows the mix so well, he sings it off the hard disks in his brain and when you have 4 different mixing back and forth like the Indian population, it’s got to be hard. And of course, Barry is a consummate dancer. Whether he’s jumping around like a maniac with his version of ‘Jam’ (which is, by the way approximately an 8 minute mix of some 5 songs) or standing still in a pose of hard concentration while singing his ‘Desert Rose’ mix, Barry proves to the world in general that he is a born performer.

Blows my mind every time I watch him. You should come and see him in action sometime. He may not have Kryptonite or a strange rubber suit or the ability to throw fridges around but man, he is truly something else.

Barry my friend, what can I say except that I’m proud to be sharing a CD with you.

- VIVEK MADAN