Jonita Gandhi on opening Ed Sheeran’s Chennai Concert with Arabic Kuthu:

Jonita Gandhi on opening Ed Sheeran’s Chennai Concert with Arabic Kuthu:

Ed Sheeran’s +–=÷× tour (pronounced The Mathematics tour) is currently in its India leg, and the British pop star held a concert in Chennai on February 5, 2025 as a part of it. The Tamil crowd that gathered to see the UK singer perform, were treated to an opening performance by singer Jonita Gandhi, and she famously opened Ed’s Chennai concert with the crowd popular Arabic Kuthu song. 

Arabic Kuthu with lyrics by Tamil star actor Sivakarthikeyan, is an Anirudh Ravichander composed song. The song’s male and female vocals are by Anirudh and Jonita Gandhi respectively, and it featured as a dance track on the Tamil film Beast (2022), produced by Sun Pictures, written and directed by Nelson Dilipkumar, and starring soon-to-be full time politician, ‘Thalapathy’ Vijay.

While Chennai Times had previously released a video glimpse of Jonita Gandhi’s performance at the Ed Sheeran Chennai concert, in their latest interview with the singer, they quote her on the choice of a Tamil song being featured on an all English concert set-list. (AR Rahman was another surprise act at this concert and he performed a mash up of Urvasi Urvasi from the Tamil movie Kadhalan (1994) alongside Ed singing Shape of You).