You know you have made it when Amitabh Bachchan shares a meme of him dancing to your song. It happened in August, when Bachchan’s granddaughter Navya made a meme replacing ‘Jahan Teri Yeh Nazar Hai’, the original song from his film Kaalia (1981), with the Sinhalese number ‘Manike Mage Hithe’. Bachchan said that the song was on loop the whole night and it was “impossible to stop listening” to it. Hours later, the meme went viral. Several Bollywood stars shared their own Instagram reels of dancing to the catchy tune. Today, the song has got more than 400 million views on YouTube and spawned thousands of Instagram reels and TikTok videos.
Meet Yohani De Silva, the woman behind the song. She is the first Sri Lankan female musician to get over three million subscribers on YouTube. Yohani was in India recently, performing live in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai. She even appeared on a TV show with Salman Khan. Clad in a red shirt with butterfly sleeves—a pixie hair cut framing her delicate features—Yohani is all smiles as she sits down for a chat with THE WEEK. In her husky contralto, she hums the tune of her viral song at our request. After a few lines, she bursts out laughing. “Music is everything to me,” she says. “My career, my passion, my dream and my life.” She says she loved her trip to India—the food, the people, and especially the fact that there are so many women in music here.
Yohani’s musical journey began when she moved to Australia for higher studies. Born in Sri Lanka to an army officer father and an air hostess mother, music was not part of her childhood. She grew up during the civil war in which her father fought. After the war, Yohani moved to London with her family. She finished her high school there, and later came back to Sri Lanka. While in Colombo, Yohani learnt to play the piano at a nearby centre where her mother would drop her for daily lessons. She learnt to play the guitar on her own through online videos and tutorials in Australia, where she went to do her graduation.
Getting groovy: The video of her latest song, ‘Moving On’ has got nearly 3 million views on YouTube.
“No one in my family has learnt music,” says Yohani. Her sister, Shavindri, is studying medicine in Russia, while her father is still with the Sri Lankan army and her mother is now a homemaker. Yohani did her bachelor’s in logistics, and it was while she was waiting for her exam results that music came calling. As she travelled all over Australia with friends, her creative pursuits became a compulsion. She came back to Sri Lanka in 2019, but her mind was full of music. “I can express my feelings better through music,” she says.
Music in her bones: Yohani at the Pullman Dubai Greek City Centre | Instagram
After completing her master’s in accounting, she took up music professionally and started working with an independent music company called Pettah Effect in Sri Lanka. Later, she collaborated with producer Chamath Sangeeth for the song, ‘Sitha Dawuna’. Since then, there has been no looking back. “But I always had a Plan B ready, of taking up accountancy if I did not succeed in music,” says Yohani, 28, with a smile.
However, her Plan B has been gathering dust since ‘Manike Mage Hithe’. Ask her how the song happened and the singer-rapper chuckles. “It happened as it happened,” is her diplomatic reply. She, however, calls it a team effort, recounting the work of Sangeeth, Satheesan Rathnayake and Dulan ARX, who made the original ‘Manike Mage Hithe’ in 2020. It was Satheesan and Dulan who invited her to sing the cover version. “What do I say? I am so happy and excited,” she says about the song going viral, adding that she has watched almost every TikTok video and Instagram reel made on it. The most popular is an instrumental version of the song by Carolina Protsen from the US, who performed it on the streets. There are Bengali, Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam versions of the song.
Today, Yohani has a packed schedule. But she spends most of her time in her studio, where ‘Manike Mage Hithe’ was recorded. She says she can spend days together in there, experimenting with pop, R&B, hip-hop and alternative music. In Sri Lanka, there were the days when the popularity of cricketers like Sanath Jayasuriya, Arjuna Ranatunga or Muttiah Muralitharan crossed national boundaries. But this might be the first time that a Sri Lankan musician has turned into a sensation. In fact, when she returned home after her trip to India, her rendition of ‘Ape kollo’ (Our boys) was part of a video made before the World Cup to cheer the Sri Lankan cricket team.
That is not her only reason to celebrate. On November 11, she released her latest single, ‘Moving On’, through the US-based label, Red Bull Records. Written and directed by Dilanjan Seneviratne, the song is about moving on in life after a painful breakup; it has got nearly three million views on YouTube. “Lies are your ABC/ Blinded I couldn’t see/ Changed myself right here/ All for you my dear/ In another life/ Maybe I’ll love you twice/ Goodbye tonight,” go the lyrics. In the video, Yohani is no longer the shy, hesitant debutante. She is confident, bold and determined to take on the world. ‘Manike Mage Hithe’ might have made her, but she has moved on!