Dunki (soundtrack)

Dunki is the soundtrack to the 2023 film of the same name directed by Rajkumar Hirani and stars Shah Rukh Khan, Taapsee Pannu, Vicky Kaushal and Boman Irani amongst several others. The album featured eight songs composed by Pritam and one song by Shekhar Ravjiani. The lyricists are Swanand Kirkire, IP Singh, Javed Akhtar, Irshad Kamil, Varun Grover, Kumaar and Amitabh Bhattacharya. After four of the songs were released as singles, the album was released on 20 December 2023 through the T-Series label.

Background
Dunki 's soundtrack is composed by Pritam in his maiden collaboration with Hirani; it is also the former's fourth consecutive collaboration with Khan after Billu Barber (2009), Dilwale (2015) and Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017). Initially Shantanu Moitra, whom had worked with Hirani's earlier films Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), 3 Idiots (2009) and PK (2014) has been considered to contribute few songs in collaboration with Pritam. During the film's preliminary announcement, Tamil film composer G. V. Prakash Kumar was reportedly considered to score music for the film. However, neither of them signed the film. Pritam composed six songs for the film, with one track "Waheguru" is being composed by Shekhar Ravjiani from the Vishal–Shekhar duo. Aman Pant composed the film score. Prior to his composing debut, Pritam worked with Hirani on composing jingles for television advertisements before his film debut with Tere Liye (2001) who co-composed the music with Jeet Gannguli.

Javed Akhtar contributed the lyrics for the song "Nikle The Kabhi Hum Ghar Se" after Hirani suggested him to write this particular track. Contrary to his norm on writing the lyrics after the tune being composing, Pritam instead suggested Akhtar to write the lyrics and then he would compose a tune surrounding it.

Release
The song "Lutt Putt Gaya" which was referred to the second drop by the film's team was released on 22 November 2023. The song also marked the birth anniversary of Sanjay Gadhvi, following his death that occurred three days before on 19 November. Pritam shared a Instagram post reminiscent of how Hirani and Gadhvi mentored him, and the latter introduced him as a composer in Tere Liye; he further dedicated the song to his memory. Arijit Singh performed the track, which was written by Swanand Kirkire and IP Singh. "Nikle The Kabhi Hum Ghar Se" was referred to as the third drop. The full song was released on 1 December, as the second single from the album. Sung by Sonu Nigam and written by Javed Akhtar, it was described by Khan as his favorite track from the album.

The promo for the third single "O Maahi" was released on 10 December, and the full song was released the following day. The song was performed by Arijit and penned by Irshad Kamil. The fourth single titled "Banda" was released on 18 December. It is a rap number performed by Diljit Dosanjh and written by Kumaar. The music video for "Main Tera Rasta Dekhunga", a duet written by Amitabh Bhattacharya and performed by Vishal Mishra and Shreya Ghoshal was released on 27 December. The music video for "Chal Ve Watna" was released on 4 January 2024.

The soundtrack featuring eight songs were released by T-Series on 20 December.

Reception
Sreeparna Sengupta of The Times of India commented that Pritam's music "scores high when it comes to underlining every mood" and described it as "the best Hindi movie music soundtrack of the year". Anuj Kumar of The Hindu complimented Pritam's soundtrack with the songs "Nikle The Kabhi Hum Ghar Se" and "Chal Ve Watna" providing "goosebumps" to the audience. Monika Rawal Kukreja of Hindustan Times said that the film's soundtrack "soothes the soul" where several portions of the film "rely purely on the lyrics or the background music for an impact, and it hits hard".