Overview
"Chammak Challo" is a song performed by Akon and Hamsika Iyer, and composed by Akon, Giorgio Tuinfort as well as music director duo Vishal–Shekhar (Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani) and by Gobind Singh, as a part of the soundtrack for the 2011 Bollywood film Ra.One. It is Akon's first musical collaboration with Indian artists. There are four other versions of the song in the album, including a remix by Abhijit Vaghani, another remix by DJ Khushi and an international version sung solely by Akon. The song, along with the rest of the soundtrack, was officially released on 21 September 2011. However, the song faced controversy when the rough version was leaked on the Internet on 31 May 2011.
"Chammak Challo" was dubbed as the "trademark of Ra.Ones publicity campaign". The song was named the most downloaded song and video of the year in India in a survey by wireless telephone major Airtel. It was rated as the best item number of 2011 in a Mid-Day poll. The song also topped the Mirchi Top 100 charts as the song of year. "Chammak Challo" also entered the Top 10 "World Songs" list of iTunes in eight countries, reaching No. 1 at three of them. Due to the extremely positive response for the song, Akon decided to branch out and make tracks especially for Bollywood projects and wanted to have a dedicated branch to produce music for Bollywood with local talent. Subsequently, Akon received a nomination for Best Male Playback Singer at the 2012 Filmfare Awards. According to the insider report, Akon was paid $350,000 to sing this song.
Production
"Chammak Challo" was composed by music duo Vishal–Shekhar and co-composed by Akon who arrived in Mumbai in March 2010 for two days to record it. Shahrukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Ra.One director Anubhav Sinha held a press conference to declare the association of the Grammy-nominated singer with the film. was recorded at the Yash Raj Studios. The lyrics were penned by Vishal Dadlani and Niranjan Iyengar. The lyrics are primarily in Hindi and Tamil, with a few English lines included.
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