Josh conducts India's biggest online Antakshari on World Music Day

Bengaluru: Josh – India's fastest growing and most engaged short video app recently concluded #Let'sPlayAntakshari, the biggest Antakshari ever played in India on a digital platform, during the week of World Music Day 2021. Engaging creators and users across Bharat in a virtual celebration on the app, the online programme was hosted by renowned singer and comedian Sugandha Mishra and received participation from ace musicians and singers in the industry including Mika, Shaan, Neeti Mohan, Sukhbir, Ankit Tiwari, Salim-Sulaiman, Neha Bhasin, Mamta Sharma and Abhijeet Sawant.

Bharat's all-time favourite musical game – Antakshari on Josh, brought together millions of musical souls from different parts of the country, while also giving followers and fans the opportunity to sing along or lip sync with their favourite Indian singers. The epitome of Bharat's culture and heritage, Josh, with this campaign aimed at infusing every Indian's heart with music while encouraging them to enjoy several underexplored genres of music like retro, sufi, romantic, emotional, blockbuster on the short-video platform.

#Let'sPlayAntakshari that launched on June 21, 2021 ran till June 27, 2021 in a fun and highly engaging format. Every day, one iconic singer dropped a theme (say 'Mausam'), a word (say Dil) or a letter (say 'M') on the platform inviting wide-range participation and videos from users and creators. What elevated the fun and set this one-week music extravaganza apart, was that thousands of users and creators across India shared exciting videos featuring themselves in duets with celebs. The app's Antakshari special filter was a hit among users as it made them look and feel like a star. By the end of the high- octane campaign, #Let'sPlayAntakshari clocked spectacular engagement with over 50,000 videos being uploaded by 12,000+ creators, garnering over 2.1 billion views on Josh. The top 5 winners of the online game were rewarded with cash prizes; the top 100 creators and top 100 UGC users were also gratified by the Josh team.

Umang Bedi, Co-Founder, Josh said, "In what has been indeed a challenging year for all of us, celebrations like these bring satisfaction to our hearts and evoke the spirit of oneness in us. While #LetsPlayAntakshari provided our audiences with a rich musical week, it was also a step towards Josh's commitment in giving exposure to budding creators to collaborate with top level artists and showcase their talent. As the famous saying goes – 'baithe baithe kya karein, karna hai kuch kaam, shuru kare antakshari leke prabhu ka naam' – so we thought why not make use of this opportunity while staying safe at our homes!"

Josh is a made-in-India, short-video app launched in September 2020 by VerSe Innovation. It represents a confluence of India's top 200+ best creators, the 5 biggest music labels, 15+ million UGC creators, best in class content creation tools, the hottest entertainment formats, and formidable user demographics. Josh has been consistently rated as the leading Indian short-video app in India on the Play store with 100 million downloads. Currently, Josh is the fastest growing and most engaged short-video app in India with 105 million MAUs (Monthly Active Users), 51 million DAUs (Daily Active Users) and 2+ billion video plays per day.