“The Unforgiven” and the magic of Vishal Dadlani, Divine, Clinton Cerejo, Shor Police and of course, Metallica!

Mumbai, 13th July 2021: Black Album of Metallica has completed 30 years and it will not be an exaggeration to say that the songs of this album are as fresh and as relevant as they could be in the year 1991. This album is a milestone in itself and this milestone has reached a milestone of its own, completion of 30 years of success. While the world is celebrating this album, here in India the duo of Vishal Dadlani and Divine gave this song their own take along with Clinton Cerejo and Bianca Gomes aka Shor Police who produced and performed on this rendition.

Coming to the song, from the very start itself, the anticipation builds up, the moment you hear the intro followed by Vishal Dadlani starting the song with the chorus, that possibly is the most awaited part of the song. The tempo builds up from here and rightly so as Vishal does not complete the chorus but keeps everyone waiting for him to complete it in the due course of the song. The pitch of the song is not the same till at least 2:52, from where the song takes its complete treatment from the original one. To many of us, this version of Vishal is the purest, unadulterated and path defining one, we would definitely want more of this from him in times to come.

While we hear Vishal taking the song on its journey, Divine takes over with his rap at 1:47. This is where the song will definitely hit even more people in India, who will be able to relate to the Hindi lyrics with more comfort and connect. The anticipation again was high from Divine, he is after all rapping to an iconic song from arguably the biggest rock band in the history. He is one of the most prominent faces of Indian Hip Hop at the moment and to be fair, he could have done his reputation a big harm if he would not have lived to the bar that has been set already. In my view, Divine had his entire reputation to lose and also, too much to gain with this experiment. It takes courage to try to match up to a historic track and, he does it with such ease, again re-affirming the fact that he is in a different league altogether. His segment will be one of the most talked about segments in the song as it hits where it should, it connects where it is meant to and it takes the song to another leap. Metallica should be immensely proud of this experiment by Divine.

This song, recreated, may very well inspire a lot of musicians to yet again combine Rap and Rock, two of the most influential genres in story telling and culture defining forms of music. The recreation and the rendition of The Unforgiven is a reminder to everyone that when age old classic meets new age rush, the output will be electrifying.

While a lot of credit gets taken by the front enders, it also takes a special focus from the producers to pick every segment and then put it together for the final product. Here, Clinton and Bianca need to be acknowledged for what they achieved with this iconic track and of course, goes without saying the influence of Devraj Sanyal, who is the executive producer of the song.

The Unforgiven will Never Be and we will possibly Never See a more impactful version of this historic song from Metallica in times to come! Metallica are once in a generation band and this rendition will also be a once in a generation phenomena!

Article by Vishwa Deepak Dikshit

Photo Credit to Individual Artists and their Teams

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