Bengaluru’s Gubbi remakes Dr Rajkumar’s ‘If You Come Today’

Bengaluru rapper Karthik Gubbi has remade Dr Rajkumar’s 1978 number ‘If You Come Today’ as a bilingual Kannada-English track that has crossed one million YouTube views.

Released on October 8 as ‘If You Come Today 2.0’, the track reworks a song from the thriller *Operation Diamond Racket*, originally composed by GK Venkatesh. The earlier version is considered the first English song in a Kannada film.

Gubbi wrote new lyrics after repeatedly listening to the original. He and his collaborators moved away from his usual rap-led sound towards regional pop, while SYNKFLO sampled sections of the original and layered them with electronic grooves, Indian musical elements and rap. Gubbi described the result as a tribute and an extension of the earlier song.

The remake brings together culture curator Nandith Jaisimha of Studio 080 and Saregama Kannada. Its video follows the plot of *Operation Diamond Racket*, with actress Nithya Shri appearing alongside Gubbi. The OGX crew play diamond robbers, and Niranjan Kumar directed the video.

It is Gubbi and Nandith’s second collaboration this year, following the Kannada rap track ‘Yerd Plate Dose’.