Lead Story

Bharat Under The Influence

Are Bharat’s creators ready to move past the memory of their TikTok reign and strike deals with brands the way their Tier I counterparts do?

Illustration: Anand Sinha

Bhuban Badyakar, a humble peanut seller from West Bengal’s Birbhum district, would often sing this Bengali song to get more people to buy his raw peanuts. As the story generally goes, someone posted a video of Badyakar singing the Kacha Badam song on the streets last year and it became a global rage. Soon, everyone—from Bollywood celebrities, musicians, social media influencers from across the world to even general users—was releasing versions of the song along with a viral hook step. Badyakar himself did a remixed version of the song with popular Haryanvi singer Amit Dhull, which only added to the song’s fame.