What’s all the craze with Kili Paul?

'Deora', Coke Studio Bangla's recent release was a massive hit, both domestically and internationally. In less than three weeks, the song hit 28 million views on YouTube alone, not accounting for the millions of views and shares on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. No other Coke Studio Bangla song was able to do that.

Is there a secret behind its success? Other than Deora's upbeat rhythm and short and snappy duration, the song was picked up by content creators like Kili Paul, bolstering its hype throughout the whole world. 

So who exactly is Kili Paul and what is all the craze about him?

Kili Paul (27) shared a 14-second long lip-sync video of him dancing to the beats of Deora's refrain (chorus) "Haate laage betha re, haat chaira dao sonar deora re'. The video also featured his sister Neema Paul. The sibling-duo performed moves they choreographed themselves. Some have said they danced better than Islam Uddin Palakar himself!

However, this is not Kili's first rodeo. We need to know about his motivations before we can answer why there is so much craze about his performance among the youth.

Kili comes from Mindu Tulieni, a remote village in Tanzania, where he did not even have electricity at the time he started sharing videos of him lip-syncing to Bollywood songs with his sister on Instagram. He revealed in an interview that he had to travel 10 kilometres just to charge his phone. 

Apparently, his family does not even know he is famous for his videos as there is no internet in the village. He has over two million subscribers on Instagram, including Bollywood celebrities!

His name Kili, short for Kilimanjaro, takes after the famous volcanic mountain in Tanzania, Africa's tallest peak. As a child, he loved watching Bollywood movies and Hindi songs were his favourite. So much so, he expressed his love for Bollywood through lip-syncing videos and shared them on social media. Despite dropping out of school at class four, he learned English out of his own interest and later he learned pronouncing Hindi through Google. 

Kili's favourite Bollywood actor is Sunny Deol, probably going to show who inspires his flamboyance. Jubin Nautiyal is his favourite singer.

Photo: Collected

His first viral content on YouTube was of him lip-syncing to 'Raataan Lambiya' along with Neema, a rather new Indian song. 

But his attention moved to Bangla music in recent times. His first Bangla lip-sync song was 'Shada Shada Kala Kala', an original song from Chanchal Chowdhury starrer movie 'Hawa'. That video made over 1.8 million views on Kili's verified TikTok account in less than 24 hours!

Following the success of Kili's rendition of Deora, actor Chanchal Chowdhury shared on his verified Facebook account the one-minute long rendition of Shada Shada Kala Kala. The post read, "Thank u Kili_Paul". Chanchal's post got over 1,50,000 reactions on Facebook.

How did Kili learn to speak and sing Bangla so well? Through Google again, we suppose; or was it his love for our music and language? 

In 2022, he was honoured by the Indian High Commissioner in Tanzania. In September of that year, he danced with Ranveer Singh on Meta Creator Day. In October, he went to 'Big Boss' season 16 as a house guest and danced with the contestants on the song 'Tu Chiz Badi Mast', another favourite of Kili's. 

The Tanzanian youngster may have just started walking on the path of stardom.