Taha G comes across as a natural entertainer. For the past several years he’s been releasing one banger after another with popular tracks such as Dou Pal, Dil Kay Isharay, Mann Mein Tu, etc and established a reputation as the music industry’s electropop lover boy.

Much like his music videos, sometimes it can feel like there’s a lot going on with his songs, with a dizzying number of tracks programmed into them but they all work.

His experimentations find the perfect balance between Western and Eastern music samples and he ends up creating music that’s easy to listen to, catchy, memorable and somewhat unique.

Through it all, you get the distinct impression that he’s enjoying every moment of creating, producing and performing his music. And that joy comes out in his latest, upbeat, danceable electropop offering: Naakay [Checkpost].

In Naakay, Taha G talks about love,heartbreak and everything in between

The song opens up with sped-up banging beat on the tabla that’s programmed through with a higher pitched beat interspersed with a modified sound effect created through Taha G’s vocalisations.

The song is fast-paced and the singer gets straight into the song. Naakay [Checkpost] is about love, heartbreak and everything in between. That’s pretty much every Taha G song to date.

The chorus goes as: Tenu ki pata/ Toota dil mera/ Rakhan ae ho teray naal/ Teray naal/ Tenu ki pata/ Toota dil mera/ Rakhan ae ho teray naal/ Teray naal

[You don’t know/ My heart was broken/ While it was with you/ With you/ You don’t know/ My heart was broken/ While it was with you/ With you]

One of the things that stood out for me in Naakay was that Taha (and his music producers) takes very simple musical samples and renders them in different ways throughout the song. Take the tabla beat that’s running throughout the song. During the second half, there comes a point where it’s given an almost echo-y effect, but only slightly so, so it sounds like a record being played within the song. It’s an interesting addition to an already catchy number.

Although the song is in Punjabi, the language is simple enough for it to be universally understood by South Asians. He has not come out with a video for the song yet. From the time of its release, Naakay has already managed to garner over 118,000 listens on Spotify. That’s not bad.

At two minutes and 38 seconds, the song is shorter than most songs released nowadays that try to at least get to the three-minute mark. At the same time, with audiences’ attention spans getting shorter and shorter, this might be the perfect length for a song to be listened to on the go.

Published in Dawn, ICON, May 21st, 2023