Rajit Dev reacts to Pachtaoge's comparison with Beyonce's Mine and Zayn Malik's Pillow talk

MUMBAI: The female version of "Pachtaoge" featuring Nora Fatehi was released recently. Soon after it went online, an anonymous Instagram account alleged that the video was a copy of Beyonce's "Mine" and Zayn Malik's "Pillow talk", but director Rajit Dev says that though they took inspiration from the videos by the pop stars, their DOP lighting, framing and choreography is original.

Reacting to the claims, Rajit, who made his directorial debut with the song, said, "While creating this with Nora we got inspirations from Beyonce, Zayn Malik, Madonna, Billie Eilish and many more. We wanted to emulate their work aesthetics and bring those visuals to life in our music videos too. The idea of creating a white outfit was to depict purity and divinity. We loved what Beyonce did with her dancers in one of her videos and we brought that together with our idea of white outfit. It helped us tell the story better. However, our DOP lighting, framing and choreography are original which is something to be celebrated."

Also read: The black outfit is inspired by 'Black Swan', not the concept, says Rajit Dev on 'Pachtaoge' female version

"Pachtaoge" original track was released last year and featured Vicky Kaushal and Nora. However, the new video was solely dependent on the "Street Dancer 3D" actress' emotions and was definitely a new format for the Indian audience. Nora dons two different outfits for the video as well. First, a beautiful white gown, which depicts the innocence and purity with which a girl enters into a relationship, then a sheer black outfit, which portrays anger, hatred and disappointment after she faces betrayal. 

Rajit, a choreographer by profession, admitted that the kind of work international artists do is something to take inspiration from as it helps in upping the game of the Indian music video space. He further added, "Being a choreographer I’m always taking inspirations from hip-hop, contemporary and other dance forms which comes from the west. We learn it from them. Our goal was to bring something new into our industry and to our audience and the style and tone which we wanted our video to be like is exactly how all of their videos are. It helped us convey our concept better in the symbolic interpretation style. The black outfit was inspired by the 'Black Swan'. This iconic look was perfect for this particular sequence in the music video and it depicted the emotions perfectly. Paying homage is great and being able to spread these ideas and techniques into India is a positive thing, and I believe Nora is a great artist to embody this style and zone into the Indian music videos. She pulls it off well!"

Addressing the claims, Rajit lastly said, instead of accusing and blaming someone and trying to pull them down, people should encourage and push each other to do better work. He said, "I want people to encourage other people’s work and not pull them down. Look at the situation in 2020 which is going, there’s a  pandemic, people are at home without jobs, there’s so much negativity around. If we don’t support each other, how will an artist take risk and achieve something in life."

"We as artist look upto every artist who inspire us in many ways. I want to take risk and explore and make more videos in that genre and will continue to do so. People need to change their attitude and stop spreading hate and negativity. Support and and spread love," he signed off. 

"Pachtaoge" female version has already received over 10 million views on YouTube. The video is being appreciated by the audience for the new concept that it introduced and many went on to praise the visual effects and background too. Sung by Asees Kaur, the song is produced by T-Series.

Also read: 'Pachtaoge' director reacts to comparisons with Beyonce's song