Diwanay Dil Coke Studio: Young Stunners and Sabaat Batin close Nu.WAV

Diwanay Dil, the last song of Coke Studio Nu.WAV, brings Karachi rap duo Young Stunners together with Faisalabad singer Sabaat Batin and producer Jokhay. Coke Studio Pakistan put it on YouTube on Friday, 13 November, and by Sunday morning it had passed 6.2 million views and was sitting in the top 10 of YouTube’s trending music videos in Pakistan, according to the kworb.net chart.

That is a strong finish for a season that started with a lot of grumbling.

Who made Diwanay Dil?

The official credits on Coke Studio’s YouTube upload name Young Stunners (Talha Anjum and Talhah Yunus), Sabaat Batin and Jokhay as the artists. Jokhay produced the track and arranged it with Talhah Yunus. The lyrics are by Talhah Yunus, Talha Anjum and Sabaat Batin, and all four share the composing credit. Jermeas Naeem, known as Jerry Sax, plays saxophone. Kamal Khan is executive producer, Gali Films made the video, and Warner Music MENA distributes it.

The Nation reported that the song grew out of Jokhay playing around on a guitar, looking for a feeling rather than a finished song. Chords came first, then drums and live instruments, and Sabaat Batin’s chorus fell into place quickly. The final version stayed close to that first session.

What is the Diwanay Dil video about?

Talhah Yunus co-directed the video with Abdul Wali Baloch, and it is pure Karachi. According to The Nation, it is set under Lilly Bridge during a traffic jam that has frozen half the city. Talha Anjum is late for a film shoot, a groom is stuck on the way to his own wedding, and the queue of rickshaws and buses slowly fills with stranger passengers: a superhero, a gorilla, dancers. Midway the story jumps to a film set where heroes and villains wait for their cue, and then back to the road, where Sabaat Batin climbs out of a rickshaw, a nod to the rides he took to studios when he was starting out.

Kamal Khan told The Nation the song “keeps moving” and called it the right way to close Nu.WAV: big, chaotic and fun.

What do the Diwanay Dil lyrics mean?

The hook, shared in Coke Studio’s own video description, is in Punjabi. In our words, it speaks to a restless, love-struck heart and warns it that loyalty is hard to find around here. It is the classic “crazy heart” idea of Punjabi folk and qawwali, set against rap verses and a city that will not let anyone move.

That contrast is the song’s charm. Sabaat Batin, who broke through with Gal Sun, brings the open-throated Punjabi melody; Young Stunners bring the Karachi swagger they built on tracks like Gumaan and Afsanay.

Why are people talking about it?

Nu.WAV is Coke Studio’s separate platform for younger artists and producers, and its first song, Dil, got a mixed welcome. Images Dawn reported in September that many listeners kept comparing it with classic Coke Studio seasons and asked for the old format back. Diwanay Dil arrives as the sixth and final track after Dil, Rangeen, Maheya, Shabnam and Qasam, and with its fast rise up the trending list it already looks like one of the season’s biggest songs.

The full song and video are on Coke Studio Pakistan’s YouTube channel, and Coke Studio links the audio on Spotify.