From the comfort of his bedroom in downtown Toronto, Tesher created a musical mashup that went viral.
Tesher, also known as Hitesh Sharma, recalled how music regularly played in the his family’s household while growing up in Regina.
“My parents wanted to instill the east Indian culture,” said Tesher. “Part of that is being in touch with music.”
Blending his Canadian-Indian heritage, Tesher fused classic Bollywood songs with top-of-the-chart hits to create the foundation of his work.
“I am trying to make music I could see my friends driving in their trucks listening to,” said Tesher.
“On the other hand, could this song be played by some kid in India driving through the streets of New Delhi? That’s the fine line, but it helps guide the process.”
Tesher’s mashup of “Old Town Road vs. Ramta Jogi” (486,600 uploads) began blowing up on the well-known video app TikTok. It lead users to find Tesher’s music and ultimately his hottest hit, “Young Shahrukh.”
“I was at a Raptors game, February of 2020 on a Wednesday at about 10:30 p.m.,” said Tesher. “The Raptors had just won and I was hyped up.
“I sampled an iconic Bollywood song called “Bole Chudiyan” and started rapping over it about things that were happening in my life: ‘I got 500 dollars in cash in case they don’t take AMEX,’ because they literally didn’t take AMEX (American Express) at the game.”
Before bed that evening, Tesher uploaded an uncompleted version of “Young Shahrukh” on his Instagram account. The response was strong.
“Young Shahrukh” dropped on YouTube later that February.
“I didn’t think it was going to blow up but then lockdown happened,” said Tesher.
“Suddenly, it felt like the playing field was even for artists all over the world because everybody was confined to this screen.”
Sony Music India contacted Tesher, hoping to work with him to bring “Young Shahrukh” to the next level. The collaboration turned out to be Tesher’s first major label release in his career.
“Young Shahrukh” is currently sitting combined at over 15.5 million hits on YouTube, 278,100 on TikTok and 11.2 million plays on Spotify. The mashup even claimed the Number One spot on BBC Radio Official Asian Music Chart in the UK.
Tesher’s parents, Indu and Mike Sharma, wish their son nothing but success and happiness.
“We feel so blessed,” said Indu. “It’s an amazing feeling when you know in another corner of the world they are making videos with his music. I can’t explain that feeling as a mom.
“We always say hard work never goes wasted. You always get the fruit of it. He does this with all his heart. His goal is just to see people happy and enjoying it.”
His dad sees himself in his son.
“He is 100 per cent a carbon copy of me,” said Mike. “I used to write and make songs. One day we will do it together.”
Tesher’s newest fusion, “Jalebi Baby,” was released Nov. 12 and is already sitting at almost 300,000 views on YouTube.
“I am sitting on a ton of stuff right now,” said Tesher. “My goal was always to reach people, create good energy with music and enjoy the process.
“The way I see it, I already kind of won.”
