Popular composer duo Salim-Sulaiman complete 25 years in the music industry
Kasmin Fernandes (MID-DAY; September 12, 2016)

Maverick at technique, musical duo Salim and Sulaiman Merchant have carved a niche for themselves in Bollywood in their journey spanning over two decades. The Emmy-nominated duo (for Nickledeon show Wonder Pets: Save the Bengal Tiger) have ventured into Hollywood (with the film Sold) and nurtured talent like upcoming Bollywood singer Raj Pandit. A new musical documentary Shukranallah celebrates their musical journey over the last 25 years. Excerpts from a chat with Salim:

Your latest single Tu Hai features Internet sensation Jonita Gandhi.
Tu Hai is the fourth song in the YouTube Jammin line-up. It is an upbeat club track. We would call it a combination of a love song and a heartbreak track. If it hadn’t been for YouTube, perhaps we would have never noticed a talent like Jonita. She is an Indo-Canadian singer, who has sung in over 15 albums, and worked with A R Rahman and Clinton Cerejo. These musicians do not need a break. The digital world is becoming the real world. People are watching less of television and exploring the internet more.

Your recent collaborator was another Internet sensation, Siddharth Slathia.
We made Mast Maula with him. The underlying emotion of the song is how carefree and easygoing love has made all of us. I also sang the track with Siddharth. With Jammin, Qyuki and YouTube are building a platform which is giving us some unique voices and the world some even greater melodies. It’s beautiful to make music that has absolute creative freedom and personality to express your emotion without any boundaries.

How has technology changed the way you compose music?
In July, we collaborated with Pakistani singer Abida Parveen and a Canadian music choir on the song Noor-e-Ilahi, yet none of us actually travelled for the song. We composed it over a bunch of FaceTime and Skype sessions.