When renowned local icon Balan Kashmir made a cameo appearance in Vedigundu Pasangge, he didn’t expect the entire cinema hall to burst into cheers and a roaring applause. Balan appeared for a mere 30 seconds during his rap bit in the opening song, “Vada Vilaiyadu”, and it received so much support and love from the audience.

“I was super grateful when it happened. I went for the premier as a regular movie goer with my wife. I was really excited to see myself on the screen for the first time. I only appeared for 30 seconds and everyone cheered for my part, I didn’t expect that to happen. I feel like all my hard work has paid off,” Balan told Varnam.my.

Composed by renowned musical duo Vivek-Mervin, “Vada Vilaiyadu” is also powered by the upbeat vocals of Folk Marley Anthony Daasan. You may recognise Anthony Daasan as the man who sang “Sodakku Mela” for Suriya’s Thaana Serntha Kootam. Of course, we asked Balan it felt like to work with someone of Anthony Daasan’s stature.

“We actually did the recording over Skype and phone. Vedigundu Pasangge’s lead actor and producer Denes Kumar and music directors Vivek-Mervin were actually guiding me all the way from India while I recorded here. We made some changes and tweaking here and there – and we nailed it in an hour. I spoke to Anthony sir afterwards and he said, “Good luck, heard your music and it’s very refreshing!””

As refreshing as it sounds, we’re sure it must have been quite a challenge to fuse rap into a traditional thiruvizha song. Having said that, we all know that Balan Kashmir is no stranger to thiruvizhas – which also happens to be theme of his current hit song!

“The verse I wrote for ‘Vada Vilaiyadu’ is one of my earliest Tamil verses, ‘Kondattam’, and it fit like a glove! So we used that verse but made some changes in the front and back. The last two lines are actually Denes’ idea, because we wanted the rap to be in sync with the friendship theme of the movie. And voila, we created something that will hopefully stand through the test of time,” Balan added.

Now that he’s made his cameo appearance and saw the overwhelming support it raked, we were wondering if Balan, well, has any plans to venture into acting.

“Haha, Denes has spoken to me about this before, so let’s see where that shall lead my career. I’ve written a script but I won’t act in it because acting is a profession that needs serious commitment. But if any director is willing to give me a chance, sure why not. But as of now, I can’t act to save my life,” Balan concluded with a laugh.

Vedigundu Pasangge is in cinemas nationwide now.