"Saami Saami" is an Indian

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of South India ** Telugu literature, is the body of works written in the Telugu language. * Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Tel ...

-language song, composed by

Devi Sri Prasad Gandham Sriprasad (2 August 1979), known as Devi Sri Prasad or more commonly by his initials DSP, is an Indian music composer, singer, and lyricist primarily known for his work in Telugu cinema, along with Tamil cinema. He has received numerous ...

, with lyrics written by Chandrabose and recorded by Mounika Yadav for the

soundtrack album A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show. The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney's ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ( ...

of the 2021 Indian film '' Pushpa: The Rise''. It was released on 28 October 2021 (released on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

as a lyrical video song) as the third single from the album, through

Aditya Music Aditya Music India Private Limited is an Indian music record label company, which owns the label Aditya Music. It produces music for the Telugu cinema industry and is headquartered at Hyderabad, Telangana. Overview The company was founded b ...

. The Hindi version was released through T-Series later due to few issues regarding distribution rights of the film. The full video song, featuring visuals directly from the film, was released on 7 January 2022 on

. The song was also released with the same title in

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

and

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

language dubbed versions. The song was produced by Aditya Music in

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

with the same title and was released in July 2023. The hook leg-dance step in the film, performed by the lead actor

Rashmika Mandanna Rashmika Mandanna (Help:IPA/Telugu, /ɾɐɕmɪkɑ mɐn̪d̪ɑn̪ːɑ/ born 5 April 1996) is an Indian actress who primaily works in Telugu cinema, Telugu and Hindi cinema, Hindi films. Her accolades include four South Indian International Mov ...

became widely popular and a pop-cultural phenomenon. Although the song and the film were released in 2021, it had a consecutive commercial success throughout 2022.

Background and composition

Mounika Yadav has made her recording debut with the song in Telugu. Impressed by her performance in the independent folk song "Bava O Sari Rava", composer

has signed her. She has recorded the song in November 2020. Rajalakshmi Senthil Ganesh, Sithara,

Ananya Bhat Ananya Bhat is an Indian playback singer who primarily sings in Kannada, Tamil and Telugu. Through her singing career, she received the award called the Filmfare Award for the song "Namma Kaayo Devan", of the film '' Rama Rama Re...'' at 64th ...

Sunidhi Chauhan Sunidhi Chauhan (pronounced ; born Nidhi Chauhan, 14 August 1983) is an Indian playback singer. Known for her Bold vocal range, she has recorded songs for films in several Indian languages and List of awards and nominations received by Sunidhi ...

and

Shithi Saha Shithi Saha is a Bangladeshi singer. She has done playback in '' Projapoti'' (2011) film with veteran Ferdous Wahid. She sings Tagore songs, folk and also film songs. She has made four studio albums. Early life Shithi learned music from her mo ...

have recorded the song in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi and Bengali languages respectively.

Music video

Background and production

The scenes involved in the music video of the song were shot at Maredumilli,

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

. Sekhar has choreographed the dance sequences.

Synopsis

The music video is a direct clip from the scenes in '' Pushpa: The Rise''. The scenes feature

Allu Arjun Allu Arjun (born 8 April 1982) is an Indian actor who works in Telugu cinema. He is one of the highest-paid actors in Indian cinemaand has been featured in ''Forbes Indias Celebrity 100 list since 2014. Allu Arjun's accolades include a Na ...

and

dancing together during a party.

Commercial performance

Globally, "Saami Saami" is the most-viewed song on

, followed by " Oo Antava Oo Oo Antava". The music video of the song became one of the YouTube India's 2022 top music videos, as declared by the YouTube's official charts. The Hindi version was ranked third. In February 2022, the Hindi, Telugu and Malayalam versions debuted at number three, six and twenty in the inaugural ''Billboard'' India Songs chart. It has become one of the top-10 most searched regional songs in 2023 on

Amazon Alexa Amazon Alexa is a virtual assistant technology marketed by Amazon and implemented in software applications for smart phones, tablets, wireless smart speakers, and other electronic appliances. Alexa was largely developed from a Polish speech s ...

in India, alongside "Saami Saami", " Oo Antava Oo Oo Antava", "

Naatu Naatu "Naatu Naatu" () is a 2021 Indian Telugu-language song composed by M. M. Keeravani, with lyrics by Chandrabose and recorded by Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava for the soundtrack album of the 2022 Indian film '' RRR''. It was released on 1 ...

", " Butta Bomma" and others.

Live performance

Mounika Yadav performed the song at the pre-release event of the film held in December 2021 in

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

Credits and personnel

Credits adapted from

. *

composer, banjo and melodica * Chandrabose lyrics * Mounika Yadav vocals * Vikas Badisa keyboards * Kalyan rhythm * Rajkumar accordion * Laxminarayana live rhythms * Raju live rhythms * A. Uday Kumar mix engineer, mastering engineer, record engineer * S P Abhishek vocal mix assistant * T. Uday Kumar record engineer * Suresh Kumar Taddi record engineer * Murugan orchestra in-charge * Pugalendhi studio assistant * R Raja studio assistant * V Dhinakaran studio assistant * B. Manikandan album co-ordinator

Charts

Accolades

Impact and Legacy

The song received positive reception from audiences, praising the music, vocal and choreography. The dance moves popularly known as Saami Saami hook-step, performed by

became a pop cultural phenomenon. There were many short videos created on social media, performing to the music and recreating dance sequences. Many celebrities have also recreated the hook-step at various events. Rashmika Mandanna performed to the song at the opening ceremony of

2023 Indian Premier League The 2023 Indian Premier League (also known as Tata IPL 2023 for sponsorship reasons and sometimes referred to as IPL 2023 or IPL 16) was the 16th season of the Indian Premier League, a franchise Twenty20 cricket league in India. It is organise ...

. She has also performed to the song at the Zee Cine Awards 2023. The Tamil version of the song is featured in the last episode of the final season of American television series ''Never Have I Ever''. Devi ( Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and Kamala ( Richa Moorjani) danced to the song at the wedding ceremony, in the episode.

Notes

References

External links

* * {{Devi Sri Prasad 2021 songs Songs in Telugu Songs with music by Devi Sri Prasad Songs with lyrics by Chandrabose (lyricist) Songs written for films Songs written for Telugu films Songs from Pushpa (film series)