If you are a millennial who grew up in India and were clued into all things music, chances are that you can sing along with Viva!, the five member girl pop group put together by Channel V. We were taken through the whole process; from the auditions, to rehearsals and their big debut. 

Fast forward to 2024: First5, India’s newest next-gen boy pop group has just released its single ‘Tu Aadatein’. The group, Yoshi, Elton, Tan and Daksh, and their mentor and investor Aksh Baghla say they are amazed at the response, during a video interview from Chandigarh. A quick look at its Instagram handle gives us a sneak peek into their lives — they live together, do covers of popular songs across languages, work hard at choreography, and film practice videos. 

A content creator, singer and songwriter from Himachal Pradesh, First5 is Aksh’s baby. “I began creating content on YouTube a few years ago, all thanks to my love for pop music. I realised that if I wanted to bring together a group, I needed an audience and began focussing on building my content and YouTube channel,” he says. With over three million subscribers on YouTube, Aksh is a familiar face online — for his many music mashups, and his ‘1 guy 30 voices’ genre of videos. 

Aksh explains how he spoke to several stakeholders from the industry, about the process and the work it would entail. Finally in 2023, he called for auditions on his social media, and following a long line of interviews, brought onboard four members. Between them, the members share great vocals, composing skills, and a penchant for dance.

Aksh Baghla | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

“The whole journey leading up to the release of our first single has been a roller coaster of emotions,” says Aksh. . While he was a member of First5, financial roadblocks led him to take up the mantle of their manager and investor. This meant he had to take a step back from being a performer. 

The music video for the upbeat ‘Tu Aadatein’ has Yoshi, Elton, Tan and Daksh having a blast, as they try to chart out plans for a possible music concert, and break into dance occasionally. “We didn’t want a video that was overly scripted and wanted this to be as real as it gets. The idea is to showcase our journey through our songs and videos,” Aksh says. The music video for ‘Tu Aadatein’ has crossed 120K views on YouTube. 

“The song came together in 14 hours,” Elton says. “We were so into writing the lyrics and composing that I’m pretty sure we all forgot to eat that day,” he laughs. While Daksh, describes the experience as nothing short of a roller coaster of emotions, Tan chimes in, in Hindi which translates to, “The fruits of labour sure are sweet!”

Hailing from Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra, the boys have now made Chandigarh their base, and stay together where they attend music and dance classes, rehearse choreography through the day, and write and compose their music. “The best part is we all now feel like family, and the song has brought us closer,” says Yoshi. 

During an Instagram live session that spanned a few hours the day after the song’s release, the group fielded numerous requests from their fans — “Can you sing a few lines?”, “When are you performing in Assam?”, and “Are we  going to get more dance videos?”  

“There are so many fan pages already, talking about how to stream our music,” Elton says, and Aksh chimes in about how it has been amazing to see this kind of a community build so fast. 

The K-Pop influence here, from their fanbase to their musical styles is hard to miss. The group has done several covers of popular K-Pop songs and soundtracks from K-Dramas, with their cover of IU and V of BTS’ ‘Love Wins All’ being one of their first videos on Instagram that went viral. When asked about their favourite artists, we get varied responses – from Bigbang’s GDragon, Zayn Malik, Arijit Singh, and Sonu Nigam to Thai singer Jeff Satur. 

While they are basking in the response to their first song, First5 has big plans for what is coming next. “The second song is ready and is going to be a heart-warming melody. While people have seen quite a bit of us singing, the boys are excited to showcase their choreography skills as well,” Aksh says.  Pop music is truly having a moment world over, and India’s next-gen talent is slowly, but surely joining the race.