British-Indian singer Avina Shah on her new single with Chris Gayle

A mutual friend thought it would be a great idea for us to do a song together. I was introduced to Chris over a phone call while I was in Greece recently.

New Delhi: British Indian singer Avina Shah has collaborated with Chris Gayle for a new dance track, but originally the West Indies cricket superstar wanted to do a remix of her 2018 track, Playboy.

“A mutual friend thought it would be a great idea for us to do a song together. I was introduced to Chris over a phone call while I was in Greece recently. Our friend had shown him some of my previous songs and Chris liked the East-West sound in my music and originally wanted to do a remix of my track ‘Playboy’,” Avina told IANS.

“We got talking about doing a song together and creating something different by adding the Caribbean flavour to my sound, by mixing India, the UK and Jamaica to create something unique. I don’t think this has been done before in anything I’ve heard, so I was really excited about the project,” she added.

Talking about the song “Groove”, she shared that it is a track she created long before the pandemic.

“I had huge plans for 2020 musically and it was due to be one of my future dance releases. However, the pandemic put a halt on a lot of my musical plans for this year. The song is all about dance, about letting your hair down and letting your body naturally groove to the beats,” she said.

Are there more collaborations in the future?

“You can expect some surprises coming up with my future music as I always like to try new sounds and challenge myself as an artiste. I will be working with some interesting artistes and brands, so stay tuned,” she said.