Nicole Scherzinger: Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny)

Nicole Scherzinger - Jai Ho!, originally uploaded by @PauloKea.

This photo shows Nicole Scherzinger in an entirely Indian makeover for her song ‘Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny)’, the fifth single from the Pussycat Dolls' studio album Doll Domination 2.0, released on February 23, 2009. It was a hit reaching number 1 in Finland, Ireland, Australia, Greece and Turkey, according to reports. The new version based on the song from Slumdog millionaire, is called "Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny)". The English lyrics do not translate directly from the Hindi lyrics, and it is written by a host of writers including A. R. Rahman, Gulzar, Nicole Scherzinger, Tanvi Shah, Evan Bogart, Esther Dean, Ron Fair, E. Nuri, D. Quinones and N. Thorbourne. Also the song was produced in collaboration with A. R. Rahman and Ron Fair, and mixed by Peter Mokran.

In an interview with HitQuarters co-writer Evan Bogart described the unusual writing process for the Pussycat Dolls' version of the song, "Ron Fair ... and Jimmy Iovine had a list of writers that they wanted to send a pop version of the ‘Jai Ho!’ song to. They wanted to get a bunch of different versions to see who could nail a version for the Pussycat Dolls. In the end they took parts of The Writing Camp version, parts of Ester Dean’s version, and parts of another version, and they put them together, and then Nicole Scherzinger and Ron filled in the blanks that they thought were missing. It’s a very unique and awkward way of writing a song.”