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Social Media Star of The Week: Shuba Vedula
For placing a pizza order by singing it like Shakira—and having the video remixed by Shakira herself!
When a friend of US-based musician and content creator Shuba Vedula suggested she mix her vocal and mimicry skills to order a pizza by singing like Shakira, Shuba was in.
“It wasn’t difficult, but it was hard to gauge what they would say in response, so I improvised during the conversation,” she gives us the BTS.
Pizza for Shakira
Shuba held on to the video for two months because she didn’t think it would have an impact. But when she finally posted it, it hit 7million views within hours and has now crossed 20million views. “You don’t know what people will like! Four weeks later and it’s still trending,” she says.
It helped that Shakira herself remixed Shuba’s video, playing the pizza guy! “For a person of her stature to credit the video to me and even caption it ‘Shuba can I take your order?’ was huge,” Shuba gushes. Shuba gained 80k followers on Instagram after that.
Did she get the pizza? “I apologised because the person taking my order really fell for it,” laughs Shuba, who has always enjoyed mimicking singers. “I’m like a parrot,” smiles the girl who has roots in Vishakapatnam and Lucknow.
Rahman fan forever
It was also through this video that AR Rahman DM-ed her. “He asked who my biggest influence was and I had to tell him it was him!” she says.
Shuba posts a video every other day. “It’s difficult to balance time but I do like being an influencer,” says the creator, who first went viral with her ‘If Ariana Grande was Indian’ video, which got 3million views, and a whole bunch of Indian followers.
Popularity does come with a price, which Shuba is willing to tackle. “For example, I don’t post locations,” she says.
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From HT Brunch, November 7, 2021
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