If we were given a rupee every time we received a press release that mentions the word “strategic” before the word “partnership”, we’d have more in our bank accounts than what your average south Asian independent artist gets from their monthly streams.
This week, it’s Universal Music India and Hindi movie production house Maddock Films—best known as the makers of the horror comedies Stree (2018) and Stree 2 (2024), Bhediya (2022) and Munjya (2024)—that have entered into a strategic partnership.
It’s for Maddock’s newly formed label Mad For Mussic and will cover “future film soundtracks and other businesses and product offerings”.
The partnership kicked off, before the official announcement, at the end of July with the release of the single “Pardesiya” from the soundtrack to the Bollywood movie Param Sundari.
The track—composed by long-time Maddock collaborators, Sachin-Jigar—has reached the top five of Spotify’s Top India Songs chart so far, and has drawn comparisons to the 1990s hit “Kehna Hi Kya” from A. R. Rahman’s OST for Bombay (1995) for its close resemblance to that tune.
Sachin-Jigar have called “Pardesiya” their tribute to Rahman, who has not been credited on the track, though notably, Universal Music owns the rights to the soundtrack of Bombay.
As such, the deal with Maddock Films marks the Universal Music Group’s return to Hindi film music after more than two decades, during which time the major’s offices in India have focused on building its pop and hip-hop repertoire in Hindi, English and various regional languages.
Maddock, meanwhile, entered into a similar tie-up with Sony Music Entertainment India in June 2024, in a deal that included “film soundtracks and indie pop singles”.
That partnership was quoted by the production house’s founder Dinesh Vijan as being for “the next two years”, implying that Maddock currently has collaborations with both of the world’s biggest music labels’ Indian outposts.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source musically.com ’
