Actor Suriya met singer Dhee in Colombo this week and asked, on camera, whether he could use her new single Vari Vari in one of his films. The track, composed by Santhosh Narayanan with lyrics by Vivek, was released earlier this month on Viswa Records.
“I’m a big fan of her work always and I was very happy to hear such a song again,” Suriya tells Dhee in a video Santhosh Narayanan shared on X. “I think it will be a timeless song. Everybody will love it.”
He then asks, “In fact, I have a request now. Is this song only in your album or is it in a film? Can I have this song?”
Suriya mentioned during the meeting that he was returning to Colombo for the first time in 24 years. Dhee, who was born in Colombo and raised in Sydney, spent time walking him through the song before he made the request.
Vari Vari is Dhee’s first release under her recently announced deal with Viswa Records, the US-based label co-founded earlier this year by Grammy-nominated songwriter Savan Kotecha in partnership with Republic Records. The song builds on Tamil folk textures and a guitar-driven arrangement under Dhee’s alto, and treats reconnection as its central image. She has described it as a search for “the part of yourself that you may have lost along the way.”
Dhee’s recent year has run heavily international, with features alongside WondaGurl, Diva Savage and Ed Sheeran, and a slot on H&M’s Red Stage campaign with GIVĒON. Vari Vari is the first release she has put out that points back toward Tamil folk, and toward Colombo, where she was born.