This Malayali music producer’s French song remix was streamed over 100 million times on Spotify

How does 23-year-old Sachin Sree Sabari, better known as Sachin SSS from Kerala’s Palakkad district, connect to ‘Dernière Danse’ (French for Last Dance), the 2013 French track by Indila that has racked up over a billion YouTube views? The song, which became the first French-language music video to cross that milestone, is a favourite soundtrack for countless Joker tributes to DC’s infamous anarchist.

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A few months after the song hit the billion-view mark, Sachin dropped a funk-infused remix and uploaded a tutorial to his channel in November 2023. ‘Dernière Danse Funk’ has since notched up over 100 million streams on Spotify — fuelled by Indian Instagram creators using it for transition videos that mimic the Joker’s signature smirk.

Music producer Sachin Sree Sabari also known as Sachin SSS
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However, this recognition did not come easily for Sachin. “I used to produce tracks and post tutorials during my college days at RLV College of Music and Fine Arts, Tripunithura. As soon as I posted a tutorial, I decided to take a short break from releasing music online, until one day, I saw a comment claiming that our track was the same as the one by a few foreign artists. This track was published after our video came out,” he says over a Zoom call. The track was released by artists ZODIVK, MC KRAKEN, and YXUNGXROTICA in February 2024.

“I was very upset when I learned about it. I contacted the artists and the streaming platforms, but they were not willing to help. Then, I shared my concerns, with proof on social media, which garnered response from a few artists,” says Sachin. The artist had created the groovy funk track in less than two hours.

Sachin was directed to Navaneeth Krishnan, an artist manager. “He reached out to the label that owns the track,” says Sachin. “It took us six months to add Sachin’s name to the track’s credits. It was clear that those artists purchased the project files, which were meant for educational purposes,” says Navaneeth.

Artist manager Navaneeth Krishnan 
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“I am very happy about the track crossing 100 million streams online,” says Sachin, who is a self-trained music producer.

Sachin also gained the right to release a track, ‘Dernière Danse Funk (Deluxe Version)‘, with a Malayalam verse, ‘eth mood? pwoli mood!’ (translation: How’s the mood? Great!), a homage to his mother tongue.

Sachin has worked with composer Christo Xavier in projects such as Turbo and Sookshmadarshini. Currently, he is working on Rahul Sadasivan’s Diés Iraé and a few other movies. He is also working on a few tracks of his own.