Music has always been an essential part of Hindi films. In fact, Indian films are uniquely known around the world for their song and dance routine, and the audience here is quite proud of it. For decades, the audience has been fed a steady diet of film songs and at one point, the popularity of film songs nearly eroded independent music in the country. This led to the dominance of film music composers.But, all power comes with great responsibility, and unfortunately, many music composers here took their audience for a ride. The idea of plagiarising songs isn’t a new one in India, and shockingly, it’s not even looked down upon. So when Bappi Lahiri and Laxmikant-Pyarelal both “took inspiration” from the same Guinean song, neither was embarrassed, but both of them called the other one “unethical” for copying the same song as them.‘Ethics’ of plagiarism in Bollywood musicThere is no way this would fly in 2026, but the early 1990s were a simpler time, for there was no internet and if someone was plagiarising something, only a select few would get to know about it. Globalisation was yet to happen, and a layman didn’t always have access to global music. Music composers believed it was well within their rights to just take any popular tune from the West, add their own spin to it, record it with some Hindi lyrics, and claim it as their own.So when in the late 1980s, Guinean singer-songwriter Mory Kanté released his album Akwaba Beach, it became a global hit. In India, it never reached the masses as Bappi Lahiri and Laxmikant-Pyarelal jumped at the chance and plagiarised parts of his hit songs “Tama” and “Yé ké yé ké”, and got into a war about who deserved the due credit. And thus, Bollywood got the songs “Tamma Tamma” and “Jumma Chumma”.“Jumma Chumma”, from the 1991 film Hum, was famously filmed on Amitabh Bachchan and Kimi Katkar. Laxmikant-Pyarelal received the credit as music composers. Anand Bakshi wrote the lyrics and Chinni Prakash did the choreography. “Tamma Tamma” from the 1990 film Thanedaar, was filmed on Madhuri Dixit and Sanjay Dutt. The lyrics were written by Indeevar, and the choreography was done by Saroj Khan. Here, Bappi Lahiri received the credit as the music composer.ALSO READ | Madhuri Dixit’s ‘Dhak Dhak’: Plagiarised music, CBFC’s censorship and the song that originally belonged to Sridevi‘It’s neither his, nor mine’The war first began when Laxmikant-Pyarelal claimed that they recorded their song “Jumma Chumma” before Bappi recorded his “Tamma Tamma”. Bappi claimed that he was completely unaware of what they were doing. In an interview shared on Lehren Retro, Laxmikant acknowledged that while making their version, they were “inspired by the first 8 bars of that song.” Bappi responded, “I don’t understand what the point of this controversy is because the song is neither his, nor mine.” But immediately afterwards, he claimed otherwise. “Of course, mine is original. I have only taken 8 bars from Mory Kante’s song.” Laxmikant also stated that “every profession has its rules and regulations and everyone in the industry has to abide by them” which now sounds like code for plagiarism.Story continues below this adYears later, when Laxmikant had passed, and Pyarelal was asked about the song, he conveniently threw the lead star Amitabh Bachchan under the bus and told Rediff that they plagiarised because Bachchan demanded them to do so. “There was a lot of pressure from actors and producers. For instance, the song Jumma Chumma was in the movie Hum just because of the pressure from Amitabh Bachchan. Out of the 500-odd movies that we have done, we must have copied 50 songs because of pressure.”ALSO READ | ‘Immortal’ but also ‘ridiculous’, Javed Akhtar’s Ek Do Teen: The numbers song that sounded ‘funny’ to Madhuri DixitSaroj Khan criticised the plagiarism, choreographed a dance break ‘inspired’ by Janet JacksonSaroj Khan, who choreographed “Tamma Tamma”, almost scoffed when she was asked about this controversy. “There shouldn’t be any controversy. Both songs are good in their place, and both are well picturised,” she told Lehren Retro and added, “As far as copying is concerned, everyone in this industry has been copying since forever.” Known for choreographing some of the most popular dance numbers with Madhuri, Saroj believed that Amitabh had “his own audience” and appreciated Chinni Prakash’s work on “Jumma Chumma”.In another chat with the same publication, Saroj spoke at length about her decision to take up the song, despite the controversy. She shared that she had put forth a condition, as per which, Sanjay Dutt would dance in the song. “When we were doing Tamma Tamma, I had put a condition. I had said I’ll do this song if Sanjay Dutt rehearses.”Story continues below this adAfter weeks of rehearsal, she actually fell off the chair when she watched him pull off the moves he had never done before. Later, Sanju confessed that he was quite nervous to dance alongside Madhuri, so he put in all the hard work he could, even though he wasn’t a natural dancer. Madhuri, who was considered to be the best dancer of this era, recalled in a chat with Filmfare that she did 40 retakes for a sequence that required four people in the same frame to be in perfect sync.This sequence, much like the rest of the song, was also copied from Janet Jackson’s music video of “Miss You Much” and here, Sanjay, Madhuri, and two other dancers had to perform the choreography where they move around with the chairs, all in one take.ALSO READ | ‘Humiliated’ by Bollywood, how RD Burman created 1942 A Love Story; teared up when music was called ‘bullsh*t’Amitabh Bachchan felt ‘Jumma Chumma’ hook step was ‘vulgar’“Jumma Chumma”, on the other hand, was done by famous choreographer Chinni Prakash, who, years later, shared that Bachchan found the hook step to be “vulgar”. The song had Kimi’s character dancing in the midst of hundreds of men as Amitabh’s character tries to woo her.Story continues below this adDespite Amitabh’s objections, when Jaya Bachchan watched the choreography, she called it “iconic” and thus, its fate was sealed. “Jaya ji started clapping, ‘Amit, what a dance! This is iconic.’ That’s when Amit ji realised what we had created. The next day, he performed every step with full conviction,” Chinni Prakash shared in a chat with ETimes.Despite sounding extremely similar to each other, both songs found success and, even three decades later, continue to have a huge following. “Tamma Tamma” was reprised in 2017 by Karan Johar’s Badrinath Ki Dulhania, and recently, it was once again brought back to life in Dhurandhar 2. The continued success of the songs makes you wonder if Bappi Lahiri or Laxmikant-Pyarelal truly deserved the credit they were fighting for; or did these songs already have their fate sealed because of the original tracks?