21 June,2026 09:29 AM IST | Mumbai | Tanisha Banerjee
Neal Sekhri and Anant Ahuja aka Ase of MadStarBase
For years, MadStarBase existed in the grey zone of the music world where their tracks were being played at clubs, shared online, and celebrated by audiences across the globe, but they lived outside the traditional music industry system. Their Bollywood edits were technically bootlegs, created as DJ tools rather than official releases.
Today, the Delhi-based DJ and production collective, comprising childhood friends Neal Sekhri and Anant Ahuja aka Ase, finds itself on the other side of that divide. After signing four remixes with Universal Music in 2024, the duo has now received an official stamp of approval from Saregama, India's oldest music label, which will release four of their remixes this month.
"It is a big deal, and it feels fantastic," says Sekhri. "We didn't set out expecting or trying to get these signed. They were just DJ tools and we were having fun. Now having that backing from labels, especially Saregama and Universal, feels amazing."
The journey has been a long one. Sekhri and Ahuja have known each other since they were five years old and started making music together while still in high school. It began as an experiment with music and now has garnered a global audience. Their Spotify page which is fairly new has around 46,000 monthly listeners.
Back in 2016, when Bollywood edits were not necessarily associated with underground club culture, the duo was not trying to create a movement. They were simply trying to make their DJ sets more exciting. "We were getting a lot of shows and were thinking about how we could make them more appealing or unique for the audience," Sekhri recalls. "Then one day we thought, âI remember this song from back in the day, what if we put a hip-hop beat with a club bassline?'" One of their earliest experiments was with the classic track Piya Tu. The unexpected combination worked, and the response from audiences encouraged them to keep exploring.
Their edits soon became known for taking familiar Bollywood melodies and transforming them into bass-heavy, dancefloor-ready tracks. However, their rise also came with challenges. Many of their tracks faced copyright strikes because they were reworking existing songs without official permissions. The irony now is that some of those same edits are being recognised as valuable creative properties by the very labels that once controlled the originals.
Sekhri believes that the accessibility has played a major role in changing the conversation around remixes.
"Now you can open Spotify and just play the music instead of searching for it on SoundCloud or another platform," he says. "These songs like Dum Maaro Dum were made 10 years ago. Now that we have a label, we get to release these songs officially and experiment with them, like adding different vocals."
While MadStarBase's Bollywood edits became their identity, the duo says they are now looking beyond that label. For Ahuja, the next phase is about exploring Indian sounds in a deeper way. Their collaboration with Keelaka Dance Company's production Sakhi, which explores the friendship between Sita and Draupadi, has allowed them to experiment with traditional Indian art forms through a contemporary lens.
"Keelaka was doing with Bharatanatyam what we were doing with Bollywood music - taking something ancient and adding freshness for today's youth," says Ahuja. "We're taking Carnatic music and adding hip-hop or electronic elements. We're trying to accentuate what was already there."
The duo is also clear that they do not want to remain boxed in as a Bollywood remix act forever. "The Bollywood remix thing was a big identity for a long time, but as your taste changes, you grow out of things," says Ahuja. "Everybody loved it and still loves it, but now we're trying to expand what MadStarBase can be."
With collaborations with local artists underway and plans to create original music, MadStarBase's next chapter appears to be more about building something new and exciting.
