Boban Alummoodan reacts to viral mashup of The Weeknd’s Starboy x Prayam Nammil: ‘It’s given the youth a reason to…’

Who would have thought a quarter of a century later, Malayali youngsters would still be vibing to the song Prayam Nammil Moham from Kunchacko Boban and Shalini’s 1999 hit Niram. The song and most importantly its onscreen singer, Boban Alummoodan’s Prakash Mathew, has got a stylish makeover in the form of a mashup of Canadian singer The Weeknd’s Starboy, with visuals of the ‘nerd’ Prakash neatly transforming into a global music icon since Shalini’s Sona chose Kunchacko’s Aby over him.

The song, which was released on the YouTube channel Six Eight (headed by Rominic Stephen) three weeks ago, has already garnered over 1.8 million views with several reels on Prakash Mathew’s global fame, being a rage on other social media platforms. The video starts with a youngster introducing 'global sensation' Prakash Mathew as the first-ever winner of Meri Awaaz Suno and India's answer to 'America's Kendrick Lamar and Drake'.

Boban Alummoodan on Niram's Prakash Mathew going viral

Talking to OTTplay, Boban tells us, “My son first showed it to me, saying, ‘This video is going viral’. After that a lot of people shared it with me. It’s great; it was totally unexpected. And I think it’s become even bigger than when the song hit, two decades ago. It’s travelled far and wide.”

Tell him about the reels that have Prakash Mathew ‘winning at life’ despite being dumped by Sona, and Boban laughs. “I think the video has helped introduce this film to the current generation and given them a reason to watch Niram,” he says. “I am happy that the song and the movie are still resonating with the youth. When people look back at my career, this film and my character Prakash Mathew are what comes to their mind first.”

On how the viral Starboy x Prayam Nammil video was created

The video was created by Kochi-based DJ, producer and VFX motion graphics artiste Rominic Stephen, who tells us that he had created the track almost two years ago but was waiting for the right visuals to release it. “I knew that releasing the song alone wouldn’t click; it needed visuals that would connect with the viewers,” he says. “When we zeroed in on this, I felt it would also serve as a redemption arc for Prakash Mathew and do justice to the song.”

On how the track and its visuals were created, Rominic says that contrary to popular belief, it’s not entirely AI. “We have used a bit of AI, but that’s not for the video. AI was used for the vocal extraction of the song. The visuals were created using a technique that existed before AI - manual face-masking and blending,” he explains.

The video - from concept to execution - took about six months to make. “Both Boban Alummoodan and The Weeknd’s body build and features are similar, so that was a huge plus. Also, initially, we had planned to just use the video of The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights because there weren’t a lot of photos of Boban Alummoodan available online. That was a challenge. We didn’t want to use AI because the eyes would appear dead; there would be no emotion to an AI-generated character,” the DJ says. “It feels bad when we put in three months of work into this video and people think it was generated in 30 seconds through AI.”

On the feedback so far, Rominic says, “More than views from our social media channels and YouTube, the user generated content for this video is high. There are other reels that have done double the number of views than we did on Instagram and YouTube.”

Boban Alummoodan's current projects

Social media has given a new lease of life for the careers of several yesteryear actors. Ask Boban if he hopes something would come out of the AI mashup, and he says, “I hope so (laughs). I wish to play good characters and if that happens, it would be nice.”

The actor, who is the son of late actor Alummoodan, is currently busy with TV serials - Madhura Nombara Kattu on ZEE Keralam and Janakiyudeyum Abhiyudeyum Veedu on Asianet. Both these are available to stream on ZEE5 and JioHotstar via OTTplay Premium. In movies, he was last seen in Shine Tom Chacko’s The Protector that was released earlier this year.