Aug 30, 2026 4:00pm IST
From ‘Pacha Bottasi’ To ‘GOLD’: Damini Bhatla Redefines Her Sound Beyond Playback Singing
Classically trained in Indian Carnatic music under traditional gurus, singer Damini Bhatla spent years navigating the high-pressure world of South Indian film playback. Her soaring vocals on the massive hit “Pacha Bottasi” from “Baahubali: The Beginning” propelled her into the spotlight at 19. She followed that momentum with standout film tracks like “Asha Pasham” from “C/o Kancharapalem” and “Blast Baby” from “God Father”.
However, serving someone else's artistic vision left a hunger to build her own standalone IP. Shifting toward independent releases like “Love Wasn't Enough” and her new project “GOLD” via Mass Appeal India, Damini is stepping out from behind cinematic characters. Supported by YouTube's global Foundry program, she is forging a distinct streaming identity and reshaping modern Carnatic pop on her own terms.
You started touring at 14 and sang ‘Pacha Bottasi’ for ‘Baahubali.’ How hard was it to transition from being the voice of a cinematic character to finding your own voice as a songwriter?
Honestly, it took years to even notice there was a gap to close. When you are 19 and your voice is suddenly playing in theaters across the world, you are not thinking about artistry, you are thinking about the attention. Singing for a film means serving someone else's vision: the director's, the composer's, the character's. Finding my own voice meant letting go of the session singer conditioning. I had to ask myself, is my voice being used correctly? Am I in the right room? If I am not available for this recording, would they wait for me or will I be replaced? It also meant not seeking validation. Learning to ask what I wanted to say, not just how well I could say what was written for me. It has been less of a clean transition and more of a slow uncovering, figuring out which parts of that early training and the traditional south Indian film setting were mine to keep and which parts I needed to unlearn.
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Your reality TV stint on ‘Bigg Boss Telugu’ Season 7 brought you closer to millions. Did that raw, unfiltered exposure change the kind of vulnerability you now put into your personal songwriting?
It did. Being on camera with no script and no edit strips away the instinct to perform a version of yourself. Once millions of people are judging you based on what the show depicts you as with the dramatic edits, you start to cover up your originality. Maybe that is why I was eliminated in Week 3. I have seen myself tired, annoyed, or crying at 3 AM. There is not much left to protect because the internet was not kind to me. That experience gave me a strange kind of freedom in the studio. I stopped writing the version of a lyric that sounds impressive and started writing the version that is actually true, even when it is less flattering. Must check out the track 'outro: you be you' on my album “GOLD” where I spoke about some of this.
With your debut project dropping this year, how are you planning to scale up your visual storytelling on YouTube?
I have always thought of my songs as movies with soundtracks before they are just tracks, so this is a chance to finally build the world around them properly. I take so much inspiration from the movies that I watch. Mani Ratnam films are my favorite. Also artists like Ariana Grande, Sabrina Carpenter, and Taylor Swift have visuals that are not even imagined of. It takes you into a new world. Working with Mass Appeal India on the project, and now with Foundry's resources behind me, I want every release to feel like a chapter, not a one-off video. Consistent visual language, recurring characters and imagery, something people can follow across the whole rollout. It is the difference between making a music video and building a universe people want to keep coming back to.
You have said creating music makes you feel in touch with your inner child. What is a musical rule you learned during your strict classical training that your inner child now loves to completely break?
I started appearing on TV around Class 8 on top of years of classical training. That combination made me grow up fast. The discipline gave me a community. Some of my closest friendships came out of the music world, but it also took the place of a normal childhood. I skipped the sleepovers, the afternoons getting my feet dirty on a playground, the ordinary teenage chaos. That is why moments now, when I am traveling, or alone in my own space doing the things I actually love, mean so much. That is when I feel closest to my inner child, and I try to listen to her whenever she shows up. The rule I learned in classical training was precision. The rule my inner child taught me back is to let go, stay curious, ask questions, follow intuition and have the fun I did not get to have back then.
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