Gulf Times / Naveen Aranha Kinnigoli - Doha

Doha, Oct 21: HE’s one of the most well-known DJs in the sub-continent, renowned as the man who infused modern-day beats and sound into ancient Hindi numbers, and had the younger generation swaying their bodies to songs they would never dream of even listening to.

He is the grand-dad of a trend called Bollywood remixes that has in fact taken India’s gen-next by storm over the past decade or so.

DJ Aqeel aka Don aka Aqeel Ali, who’s forever travelling to perform abroad, is set to make a stopover in Doha on November 2 to give Doha a taste of his sounds at the Diplomatic Club.

Aqeel, who started DJing about nine years ago, travels to the UK and US apart from several other countries for shows for most part of the year.

Despite being known for his Hindi remixes, the DJ says: "When I play abroad, 70% of my audience are whites, 20% are Middle Easterns and only 10% are Indians."

That’s the whole idea, he says. "I seize the best of Indian melodies, combine them with diverse sounds and then take them to an international audience."

His remixed versions of songs from Bollywood, the world’s largest film industry, like ‘Tu Hai Wahi’, ‘Kajra Re’, which swept all top Indian song awards earlier this year, and his latest remix of the title track from the Aamir Khan flick Fanaa, have topped the list of requests in metropolitan nightclubs.

These songs would have probably never made it to the Indian club scene had it not been for the likes of Aqeel.

The event, which will have popular local DJ Joe Mitri opening for Aqeel with progressive house numbers, is being organised by Entertainment For You (E4U), a Doha-based events management company.