Rowdy Baby is a

Tamil language Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory of Pud ...

song composed by

Yuvan Shankar Raja Yuvan Shankar Raja or Abdul Haliq (born 31 August 1979) is an Indian film score and soundtrack composer and singer-songwriter. He mainly scores music for Tamil films. Considered a versatile composer, he is particularly known for his use of We ...

for the soundtrack of the 2018 action comedy film ''

Maari 2 ''Maari 2'' is a 2018 Indian Tamil-language action comedy film written and directed by Balaji Mohan. It is a sequel to his 2015 film '' Maari''. Dhanush, besides producing the film under his company Wunderbar Films, also stars as the title char ...

'' and sung by

Dhanush Venkatesh Prabhu Kasthuri Raja (born 28 July 1983), known professionally as Dhanush, is an Indian actor, producer, director, lyricist and playback singer who predominantly works in Tamil cinema. Starring in 46 films over his career, among hi ...

alongside

Dhee ''Dhee'' () is a 2007 Indian Telugu language, Telugu-language action film, action comedy film directed by Srinu Vytla and produced by Siri Venkateswara Films. The film stars Vishnu Manchu and Genelia D'Souza while Srihari and Brahmanandam pla ...

. The song was officially released on 28 November 2018 as a single from the film. Upon release, the song went viral and became very popular, and its music video, released in January 2019, featuring the film's lead pair Dhanush and Sai Pallavi, broke several

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

records, becoming one of the most viewed Indian songs of all-time.

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

listed the song in the Global Top 10 Music Videos of 2019. According to YouTube Top Trending Music Videos, ''Rowdy Baby'' was the most streamed Indian video of 2019 and the seventh most globally. As of 16 November 2020, the views on YouTube crossed 1 billion views, making it the only South Indian (and Tamil) cinema song on YouTube to achieve this feat, also the lyrical video of the song has garnered more than 93 million views on YouTube. This is the 20th most-viewed Indian video on YouTube.

Music video

The video see the film's lead pair, Dhanush and Sai Pallavi dancing to the tune in a set at the AVM studios in Chennai.

Prabhu Deva Prabhu Deva (born 3 April 1973) is an Indian dance choreographer, film director, producer and actor who has worked predominantly in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, and Kannada language films. In a career spanning 32 years, he has performed and designed ...

was assigned to choreograph the song along with

Jani Master Jani Master (born Shaik Jani Basha; 2 July 1982) is an Indian dance choreographer who predominantly works in Telugu cinema. He has also worked in Kannada, Tamil, and Hindi films. He choreographs in a wide range of dancing styles, but he is mostl ...

. Sai Pallavi, who had participated in a dance reality TV show called ''Ungalil Yaar Adutha Prabhudeva'' () 10 years before and was eliminated in the semi-finals, failing to meet him, later recalled that through this song, she was eventually able to meet and work with Prabhu Deva, sharing a picture taken on the sets, which coincidentally was the same sets where the show had been shot before. The video was uploaded on 12 January 2019 on

, and had achieved lot of views due to its choreography and picturisation.

Reception

Critical response

"Rowdy Baby" was listed as one of the year's best Tamil songs by musicaloud.com, and in the Top 10 Tamil songs of November on Film Companion by Karthik Srinivasan, who called it a "fantastic song, with a swinging African-style guitar and funky singing by Dhanush and Dhee". Aarthi Murali of ''Silverscreen'' stated the song to be "cheeky, stupid, and of the best kind".

Performance and records

The music video became a viral phenomenon upon release, breaking several

records. Besides being the second fastest South Indian as well as Tamil language video to reach 100 million views in 17 days ( Arabic Kuthu being the first in 12 days), it was also the first to cross 200 million views. On 8 February 2019, it crossed 179 million views, beating Dhanush's previous viral hit " Why This Kolaveri Di" to become the most viewed Tamil song, before beating " In August 2019, it was said to be the "first Tamil song to cross 500 million views". On 16 November 2020, it crossed 1 billion views to become the first Tamil film song to achieve this feat. It was one of the two most streamed songs on

JioSaavn JioSaavn is an Indian online music streaming service and a digital distributor of Hindi, English, Malayalam, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Bhojpuri and other regional Indian music around the world. Since it was founded in 2007 as Saav ...

Awards and nominations

References

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External links

Rowdy Baby (video song)
on YouTube
Rowdy Baby (lyric video)
on YouTube 2018 songs Indian songs Tamil-language songs Tamil film songs Songs written for films Songs written by Dhanush Songs with music by Yuvan Shankar Raja