Mafia Mundeer: Honey Singh, Badshah and Raftaar Controversy

If you follow Honey Singh, you may have read many talks about Badshah, Raftar, Mafia Mundeer and controversies surrounding them. You may have read a lot of people saying "this is the reality of Honey Singh" or "the truth of Yo Yo Honey Singh" or "Honey Singh is a cheat" and so on. And even though this topic is quite a hot topic in Desi Hip Hop fandom, I don't see any proper article explaining the situation. Information is available but in bits and pieces. For someone who just starting following Honey Singh, it may be difficult to quickly grab the situation. So if you are one of these people, then this article is perfect for explaining the situation to you. Please note that a lot of information in this article is just based on interviews and is not properly verifiable and there might be some opinions involved in this article.

Honey Singh, Badshah and Raftaar were good friends for a long time. Honey Singh and Badshah have done several collaborations, including the infamous Vol I and songs like Khol Botal, Begani Naar and  Delhi ke Deewane. The same goes for Raftaar, with whom Honey had collaborated in the song Raftaar. But these were all before International Villager, the only exceptions being the song Get Up Jawaani, a Honey-Badshah song, which was in IV itself and 2012 song Gadbad which had both Honey and Raftaar. But we haven't seen them working together on any project since 2012. Instead, we see them fighting all over the place. So what happened?

Well what happened apparently is that Honey Singh didn't give proper credits to them in IV. They have claimed on several occasions that Brown Rang and Dope Shope were written by Badshah and Raftaar respectively but Honey copied these songs in his album without giving them proper credits. Another popular view by Honey Singh's fans is that they might have had some contribution in these songs but didn't mind not getting credits before the release of the album. But when the album got released and became super hit they got jealous and asked him to give them credits. But he refused because the album had already been released and changing the credits now might create controversy. So they had a fight over this issue and parted ways. The fight got so bad that they haven't even talked since then(Badshah said in an interview that he hasn't talked with Honey Singh since 2012).

Another issue is that YoYo has been using lines from there very old songs which were collaborations between these three in his concerts without giving them credits. Well in a way he does have rights to use these songs as he was a part of the songs too but since he so famous as compared to them, it might hit some chords. 

Since then we see Badshah and Raftaar abusing Honey Singh on their Facebook pages. Raftaar has taken it to another level by mocking and giving direct challenges to him in his songs. In one of his songs 'Swag Mera Desi Hai', Raftaar mocked and gave direct challenge to him by using his line from the song 'Party with the Bhootnath'- "Ab ye Kar ke Dikhao"(Do this if you can). While Honey Singh has always been silent about the issue.

See this Facebook post by Badshah:

Post by BADSHAH.

How immature is that!!

Another point in YoYo's favour raised by his fans is that if Badshah is so possessive about his songs than where was he when YoYo was being accused for his vulgar lyrics which he claims are written by him and where is he when everyone abuses him for Vol I which he was also a part of? Why doesn't he share the credits for them too? And where is Raftaar when people blame Honey Singh for polluting the society and writing lines like "Chako chako kuch fresh nahi milna" which was part of Dope Shope whose lyrics he claims to have written? If they want to share the popularity then they should be ready to share the blame too. They say that the truth is they are just jealous of Honey Singh and how he has got popular in so small time.
And about Mafia Mundeer, in an interview with Manj, who has formed Three Records', whose Raftaar is also a member, said that the Mafia Mundeer we see now isn't the real Mafia Mundeer. The original members of Mafia Mundeer were Honey Singh, Badshah, Raftaar, Ikka and Lil' Golu, who recently featured in YoYo's song 'Issey Kehte Hain Hip Hop'. But after all the above mentioned events happened the original members parted ways and then Honey Singh formed the new Mafia Mundeer which post IV included Honey Singh, Alfaaz, Money Aujla, J-Star and Badshah. Later on, J-Star and Badshah also left and now Mafia Mundeer is left with only three members who are still close friends.
As of now, the popularity of Badshah and Raftaar is nothing compared to Honey Singh. Most of the Honey's fan-base dosn't even know about them. But recently there popularity has gone up with there entry into Bollywood and release of songs like Saturday Saturday and Dhup Chik. Also some of there independent songs like Bandook, Chull and Swag Mera Desi have also become popular. Badshah is even going to have a song with Sonam Kapoor in an upcoming movie. We wish both of them luck and popularity and hope that they will stop pulling off cheap tricks and publicity stunts.

Honey Singh Adult Songs Controversy

In the aftermath of 2012 Delhi Gangrape Case, Honey Singh was accused of writing lyrics to a adult song named 'Main Hoon Balatkari'(I am a rapist) depicting violence against women. In this concern an FIR was lodged against Honey Singh for his offensive lyrics while a group of social activists filed an online petition demanding cancellation of his New Year performance at a Gurgaon hotel. As  result of this campaign Honey Singh's New Year concert cancelled by hotel. This accusation caused nationwide uprising and got Honey Singh on every news channel. Honey Singh refused to comment on any of this and did not give his alibi to the press. On being asked why he didn't talk later after these accusations were removed Honey Singh replied by saying that 'he did not wanted to benefit from this situation'.

On July 4th 2013, Punjab and Haryana High court dismissed all the cases filed against Yo Yo Honey Singh, which said that he has sung the Balatkaari song. The FIR and the PIL filed against him were dismissed completely by the court stating that there is no proof that he has sung the song and that YouTube is such a medium where any one can upload any content under anyone's name. In this case also, a derogatory song against women was uploaded on YouTube under Yo Yo Honey Singh's name by an imposter and then reports were filed against him.

On being asked about all this in an interview with The Times Of India later in July Honey Singh replied as follows:

"I have never written a vulgar song. No song of mine has words that need to be beeped out. Mere jo gaane hain, woh 20% mere experience se hote hain, baaki woh jo maine observe kiya hai. What I saw in Delhi and Bombay, that boys are into body building and woh alcohol nahi lete, ladkiyan dabadab pi rahi hain neat shots. Mere liye yeh naya experience tha. Tabhi maine likha tha Dope Shope. That's how Brown Rang also happened. I used to see how crazy people would get if they see a gori mem. I've lived all over the world; if they see a brown-skinned girl, they all go crazy, and I'm a big fan of Indian beauty, so I wrote that song.

See, someone who struggled for six years, why would he be so stupid as to make a song that he can't sing on any stage or sell any CDs of? Apne chalte hue career pe laat kyun maarega koi? And we've been condemning them since 2008. We'd been telling YouTube ki aap hamaare mai baap ho, aapne hamaari bahut madad kari hai, lekin inko aap hatao. We presented all these emails which were exchanged with YouTube in the court, we have the details of all the domains they removed. See, all my concerts were major hits, and what was planned for the New Year's Eve was massive, but of course, there were some people who didn't want that to happen. There was another show planned for December 25, which some of these people I knew were organising. At that time, I was in Singapore, but when I heard that the situation in Delhi is not good, that there is disturbance in the society, I asked them to call it off. Then, my people approached those who were organizing the New Year's bash, and said the same thing. Unhone kaha arrey yaar, 31st ko toh duniya celebrate karegi. But that's the time when things started getting out of hand, the media picked it up, and I didn't go for the show. Three thousand people turned up, but I didn't do that show. On January 1, we'd issued a public notice in three newspapers condemning the song, but nobody paid attention to that. But on January 3, the media picked up a tweet from a fake Twitter account saying 'I didn't write the song but I sang it.' We got that account also shut down."

Honey Singh Marriage and Wife Shalini Talwar

For a long time marital status of Honey Singh was unknown. In fact, whole personal life of Honey Singh was unknown for a long time. Although some people said he was married but those were only considered as rumours. But after these pictures were leaked on the internet the news of his marriage got viral on the internet and became a hot topic to talk about. It was accepted and became clear that he was married:

After seeing these pictures it was accepted that Honey Singh got married to Shalini Talwar in 2011. 

Until Honey Singh gave this controversial statement in an interview- “I may have a lot of girlfriends, but I am not at all married. Those wedding pictures on the net are not true, they are from a shoot that I had done.”. This statement again raised questions on his marital status. Things became even more confusing when Vinod Kumar, the photographer who took these images was contacted- “I was the official photographer at Honey Singh’s wedding ceremony, which took place on January 23, 2011 at a farm house in the outskirts of Delhi. There were Sikh rituals in the morning at a Gurudwara in Sarojini Nagar,” he said. 
Later on, however, in an interview with Z News and another interview with Aajtak he admitted that he was married and these photos were of his marriage only. Honey Singh's denial of being married confused the media for a long time. There was no particular reason that could be thought of of his this behaviour. What was the reason he was hiding his marriage? Later on in an interview he said that he was hiding his marriage because his wife has her own identity and she didn't want to become "Mrs. Honey Singh." He also jokingly said that he was concerned that news of his marriage might affect his popularity with teenage girls. He also said that he loves his wife but is not able to meet her as often now which is understandable considering the level of success he has achieved and how busy he is with his bollywood songs, films, singles, TV shows and so on.
Later own Honey Singh has confirmed about his marriage and on several occasion and now the fact that he is married is well known. Bio of his wife is available and media is now even covering news about her.

It is reported that Honey Singh met Shalini Talwar at his school in Punjabi Bagh after his family shifted to Delhi from Punjab. They became close friends over time they started dating and she became his girlfriend. But they were separated for some time after Honey went to Trinity School, London to get his education in music. But after he returned and made his name in the music industry they got in touch again. After some time the arrangements were made and they got married in privacy with only close relatives on 23 January 2011. The news of there marriage was kept a secret for a long time though.