JLo owes it to me: Bappi Lahiri

Jennifer Lopez’s new Pitbull-featuring, Lambada-sampling single On The Floor is topping charts internationally, but anyone who has heard the track cannot miss the opening tune, which is identical to Bappi Lahiri’s song Sochna Kya from the 1990 movie, Ghayal.

While Bappi had himself borrowed the tune from Bolivian band Los Kjarkas’s 1981 number Llorando se fue, or possibly its 1989 adaptation by French group Kaoma, fans believe that JLo copied the number from the Indian composer, and Bappi agrees.

“Jennifer Lopez definitely owes it to me. I brought Lambada to India 19 years back and she has done it now. The credit goes to me. I am writing an email to her to tell her this and inform her that I, an Indian music composer, had first introduced Lambada and she has done it so many years later,” he says.

The YouTube video pages of both Bappi’s and JLo’s songs are flooded with comments about the common connection. “OMG JLo is a copier!” reads one. Another user writes, “Hahaha wow this is a first. Americans copying Indian music!”. Math001 writes on the Sochna Kya page, “the song Jennifer lopez ft pittbull........copied the music of this song.....LOLZ (sic)”. Still another comment goes, “Yes, Brazilian is the original version … the song has been stolen in many ways.”