Bridging the gap between Bollywood and the Indie music circuit - OAFF
The soundtrack of “Gehrahiyan” produced by Bollywood’s very own Dharma Productions made several rounds on Social media for several reasons. But that is not why we are broaching this topic. “Gehrahiyan” is actually the Hindi version of OAFF and Lothika’s song “Frontline” which they released back in 2018. Featuring in Bollywood, really changed the numbers in ways we all expected but did not imagine.
The soundtrack of “Gehrahiyan” produced by Bollywood’s very own Dharma Productions made several rounds on Social media for several reasons. But that is not why we are broaching this topic. “Gehrahiyan” is actually the Hindi version of OAFF and Lothika’s song “Frontline” which they released back in 2018. Featuring in Bollywood, really changed the numbers in ways we all expected but did not imagine.
Kabeer Kathpalia, who goes by OAFF, started producing music in his early 20s, towards the end of his college. And like every story of perseverance and dedication, his initial songs were released on SoundCloud and Facebook.
He calls his music “atmospheric pop”, which is consistent with the feelings of being enveloped gently that his songs evoke. He grew up listening to the Beatles, which he traces as his pop influence in his songs.
But the world of soundtracks is different from the world of Album music. Soundtracks cannot tell a story of their own, they are meant to support and guide the viewer along the storyline of the film that they are a part of. And this is the difference OAFF draws between his indie music career and his film music career.
Completely unrelated but a very interesting fact about him, is that he has majored in Mathematics and Physics. Maybe the gap between science and the arts isn’t as stark as our high school education made it seem.
What is OAFF then - well according to him, it’s derived from the English word Oaf, which is not a word you’d use to describe a Science graduate with a successful career in music. But the story is not as light as you would imagine. Being OAFF allows him to be artistic and free from his OCD, hence the name.
His first song, “For a While” was released in September 2018, followed by “Frontline”. Frontline was a song he released with Lothika, which helped her through a stretch of grief in life. The lyrics for frontline were inspired by the notes in Lothika’s diary, they had a very personal story to tell.
Bollywood isn’t his only foot in big business music. He wrote commercial jingles for some big names including H&M, Maruti and if you follow Indian TV, the jingle for Inside Edge (Amazon Prime series).
But for every commercial piece he makes, his social feed holds snippets of music that are music for music's sake. Dabbling in themes of nostalgia, yearning, loss and melancholy these less than 60-second experiences are a world apart (very much literally as well, as they have absolutely no commercial aspect to them for OAFF)
You can check out his reels on his Instagram
And his latest 1 min short with Lothika 👇
