“God has sent me to make people happy, so here I am, singing songs of happiness and celebration,” Malkit Singh breaks into a song from his latest album Billo Rani and explains why he chose the two words seeped in Punjabi (catcall) tradition: “Billo is Punjaban and Rani because I was honoured with the MBE by the Queen in England,” with an international feel and voices added to his musical repertoire, he hopes to reach out to the younger international audience. But what happened to the original folk flavour? “That’s there...that’ll always be there, for, a meaningful melody will always work,” Malkit, however, is a little disappointed with the attention paid to NRIs and love and romance. “There are plenty of other subjects like drugs, farmers, land, to touch upon,” he feels.

In the meantime, there is a contest running with his new album looking out for two actors. Music lovers and aspiring actors can participate in the contest by appearing for auditions to be held in Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Amritsar and Ludhiana by sending Billo to 59995. A special jury comprising experts from UTV, Universal Music and Malkit Singh himself, will select one male and female to play the lead role in the music video by Malkit Singh.