iWorld
Adnan Sami releases new single ‘Lipstick’ with Zee Music Company
The Padma Shri-winning singer-composer teams up with Zee Music Company on a feel-good track that blends Rajasthani folk, festive energy and club-ready beats into one infectious package
MUMBAI: Adnan Sami has never been a man who does understated. His latest single, Lipstick, released by Zee Music Company, does not attempt it either. It is loud, joyful, unapologetically catchy — and underneath the shimmer, it has something to say.
The song is built around a deceptively simple idea: the moment a small, everyday act tips a person from ordinary to untouchable. A swipe of colour, a glance in the mirror, and suddenly the room belongs to you. Sami wraps that idea in a hook that refuses to leave, a beat that refuses to sit still, and a soundscape that borrows freely from Rajasthani folk, festive tradition and high-energy club music — a combination that ought to be chaotic and somehow is not.
The track’s cultural specificity is part of its charm. The phrase nazar utaar le, drawn from the Indian tradition of warding off the evil eye, runs through the song as both a lyrical anchor and a statement of intent: protect your glow, deflect the negativity, own what you have. It is a sentiment that travels.
Sami says the song began modestly. “Lipstick started with a simple, catchy thought but quickly grew into something much more meaningful. It’s about that instant shift in confidence — that moment when you feel your best and own it unapologetically. I wanted the song to feel joyful, empowering, and rooted in something culturally familiar, yet universally relatable. I loved the idea of nazar utarana as a symbol of warding off negativity.”
The release comes with a music video designed to match the song’s visual and emotional register — striking, entertaining and built to hold attention in a crowded streaming landscape.
The ambition is plain: Lipstick is engineered for playlists and charts, conceived to work as well in a Jaipur wedding procession as in a Mumbai nightclub or a gym in the middle of the afternoon. Whether it lands that broadly will depend on audiences. But Sami, a Padma Shri awardee with decades of cross-generational hits behind him, has earned the right to swing wide.
A swipe of lipstick, a surge of confidence, a song about neither and both. That is usually how the best ones work.
