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When Spotify got Salim Merchant, Badshah and Nucleya to play Twitter Antakshari

While many social media users enjoyed the game on the microblogging platform, few used the thread to express their disappointment.

Did you ever think you could play Antakshari online?

The traditional format of the age-old recreational activity - 'Antakshari' - is usually played at get-togethers. The rule of the musical game is to start a song with the last letter of the opponent's lyrics. As it turns out, there is a digital version of it too, which enables one to participate using their social media accounts.

When Spotify got Salim Merchant, Badshah and Nucleya to play Twitter Antakshari

Spotify's Social Media initiative

Spotify India, on its official Twitter handle, posted - "This you could do baithe baithe but we wouldn't really say it's kaam," kick starting a Twitter Antakshari thread. It posted a Spotify Link for "Meri Gully Mein" a popular song from Zoya Akhtar's Hindi blockbuster - 'Gully Boy' - and asked the next participant to start with 'N'.

Moments after Spotify India's tweet, Indian-born-Canadian singer, Jonita Gandhi who rose to fame with "The Breakup Song" from "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil" joined the game and nominated music composer trio, 'Shankar Ehsaan Loy' to carry it forward.

Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa posted Spotify links of a Telugu song 'Evade Subramaniyam' on their official twitter handle and nominated another popular music director - Salim Merchant.

The thread carried on with a number of social media users participating in the game. Other celebrities like Nucleya and Badshah also joined in.

As per sources at Spotify, the 'Twitter Antakshari' was ideated by the digital marketing team and the influencers were strategically selected to exhibit the wide library of Spotify in India. Whenever someone clicked on the Spotify links of the songs shared on Twitter, it only played a shortened version. The song would end abruptly and ask Twitterati to log in to Spotify to listen to the full song.

However, it was not all hunky-dory for the Sweden-headquartered music streaming giant's India unit, which started streaming in February this year. Few fans used the same thread to express their disappointment on the lack of available options.

Many Spotify fans also demanded the inclusion of 'Warner Music' and each time the support handle of the music streaming platform replied with:

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