Balaram J. Balaji's Silent Influencer launches with GV Prakash on vocals

Sri Venkateswara Creations (MBJ) brought out the heavy stationery for a single song. Silent Influencer, a music video featuring Balaram J. Balaji with vocals by G.V. Prakash Kumar and Iykki Berry, was unveiled at a Chennai launch on Thursday with a dais closer in scale to a feature-film opening than a song-video drop. Directors Perarasu, Saran, Ezhil and R.V. Udayakumar all turned up. Choreographer Dinesh Master, cinematographer Ilayaraja, editor Ram Gopi, composer Aswamithra, lyricist Jayanthi, art director Sampath Thilak and the banner’s creative head Ashok Annamalai filled out the row. Director Raja Padmanabhan, whose first single this is, sat in the middle.

The rhythm of the speeches told you what the event actually was. Saran, whose Amarkalam was recently re-released by the same producer, ribbed Raja from the lectern: “You have shown one song from a two-and-a-half-hour film. Where is the rest of the film? When are you going to shoot it?” He noted, more usefully, that Saregama does not put a song on its platform on a whim; the label runs a checklist of its own, and clearing that, he said, is half the win. The intent of the launch was hard to miss: this is a position-launching exercise dressed as a song release. Venkateswara Creations is using a music video to install Balaji as a face the trade recognises, before any film with him in the lead has even been pitched.

Balaji himself was candid about that. He told the audience he had been pulled out of cinema by his father’s death in 2014 and ran the family jewellery business for some years before circling back to film through small videos. “My friends pushed me to build an identity first,” he said. “I told Raja sir: don’t make me a hero straight away. Let me build an identity, and then we will do a film. He agreed. That is how Silent Influencer happened.” His first audio single, he noted, had come out only in 2025. The role model he named, after his father, was Vijay.

That second name was the room’s other story. Vijay was sworn in as Tamil Nadu’s chief minister earlier this week, and a long stretch of the launch ran in parallel as a sustained tribute. Director Perarasu, who first put Vijay and Dinesh Master together for Sivakasi back in 2005, said the chair Vijay now sits in belongs in a line that runs from M.G. Ramachandran through Karunanidhi. “We have been facing many problems in cinema,” he said. “Vijay sir’s tenure will be the dawn that fixes them.” He asked the new government to release the state film awards the year after a film opens, rather than the way every recent administration has delayed them. The industry has been drawing up its own wishlist for the new chief minister all week.

R.V. Udayakumar went further: “M.G.R., and after him, Vijay. He has the age, the speed and the wisdom. He will be CM for the next two generations.” He paired the line with a thinly veiled note for the industry. There are fewer good directors today, he said, and the producers and actors who do have them are not using them well. Saran, signing off, added Vijay to his own list of congratulations. Ezhil, more workmanlike, stayed on the song itself, calling it a clever way for a producer and a director to introduce a hero and a technical team to the audience before betting an entire film on them.

The track, choreographed by Dinesh Master, was shot in December last year. Raja said the timing now felt right anyway. G.V. Prakash Kumar and Iykki Berry’s vocals carry the song; Aswamithra composed; Jayanthi wrote the lyrics. The audio-video is out today.