Veshti-clad Akon does the kuthu with STR

He may not have been mobbed at the airport, but gearing up for STR’s Love Anthem – it seemed everybody wanted a piece of Akon. On set at Binny Mills, the ‘Smack That’ singer impressed actor Silambarasan and the crew gearing up for the shoot with his quick desi transformation in a crisp white veshti-sattai. And if this wasn’t surprise enough, STR tweeted later: ‘He has tried our kuthu step and he just rocked it :) 

And beyond the buzz of the five-time grammy nominee’s traditional avatar, it turns out the Love Anthem team cannot stop raving about the singer’s humility. “I’ve never met a superstar as ‘superfriendly’ as Akon,” says photographer Karthik Srinivasan who shot the stills for the anthem. Srinivasan elaborates, “I don’t know whether the whole crew like the light guys and backstage hands knew just how big Akon is, or whether they’ve heard his music before....” He goes on, “But at the end of the shoot, a hundred people surrounded him to take photos with him – it was like a ‘Rajini-reception’!” 

While the specifics of the shoot sequences are still under wraps, STR does tells us that the video will include elements such as “peace symbols, candles and Indian dancers”. One can chance a guess that these visuals will be set in place in the post production stages, given the chroma key set (green screen that allows a different background to be substituted) – in the photos that we’ve glimpsed of the shoot so far. This certainly ties in well with the fact that the lyrics with inputs from Akon – are multi-lingual. “The song has words in about 96 languages,” reveals STR. He adds,“This version will be different from the last version of the song. The new version will be more about oneness and the need to spread love.” Apparently the actor was scheduled to shoot in the US while on tour there, but couldn’t work out the dates at that time. 

Now that the project has come together over a year later, the actor couldn’t be happier. He shared the feeling with fans on twitter saying, ‘God has always delayed things for me but has never ever denied it . Trust and belief is the only thing which has saved me all my life :)’ Clearly, smileys won’t be in short supply in STR’s statements this week

Published In NEW INDIAN EXPRESS Daily English News Paper Dated 8-MAY-2013