Do you remember listening to ‘Mr Fraudiye’ by Awaz in the 1990s? It had makeup guru Tariq Amin dressed like a mob boss swindling people out of their hard earned money, Haroon, Faakhir and Asad wearing bright suits and former top model Aminah Haq as the femme fatale.
Shot at the iconic Metropole Hotel, the song was about karma catching up with a corrupt man. What we didn’t know is that the song had more to it.
In an interesting Twitter exchange, the band’s former lead singer, Haroon Rashid, explained that they had to make a few changes before the song was released.
Yes originally when we wrote the satirical song the chorus was “ten percent, way ji wah tu kina set hai. Mister Ten percent, kinay paisa thuginay!” Faakhir and I decided to change the 10% line to Fraudiay to make it an anti corruption song with a wider message. https://t.co/VoPAhM2eQG
— Haroon (@TheRealHaroon) April 3, 2020
Initially, Haroon said the chorous was “ten percent, way ji wah tu kina set hai. Mister Ten percent, kinay paisa thuginay!”
But Faakhir and Haroon decided to change that to Fraudiye to “make it an anti-corruption song with a wider message”.
The singer-songwriter said this in response to a fan who tweeted: “Just got to know that famous Awaz song ‘Mr. Fraudiye’ was initially titled ‘Mr. 10%’ but since PPP was in government at that time, they had to change the name and even then the song got banned.”
