At best, documentaries about celebrities are an ode to their fame; At worst, these end up as an image makeover exercise for those who have fallen from grace. “Rare” is a documentary, particularly about a living person, that dares to face the truth and delivers a balanced, insightful report. Is Sikhya Entertainment’s Netflix film this venture? Maybe yes, maybe no, but as director Mozez Singh chronicles the story of Punjabi singer Yo Yo Honey Singh, who has experienced both the dizzying heights of fame and the depths of infamy, he tackles the elephant in Honey’s life from the start a.

After a brief flashback to his younger years, we see how newscasters scream murder of decency in his songs. If you can’t remember, let us remind you that Honey Singh was a musical phenomenon more than a decade ago. Concerts, movies, reality shows, he was everywhere. And then the terrible Nirbhaya incident happened in 2012. Social post-mortems pointed fingers at Punjabi singers and their obscene lyrics, the subtext of which was sexual violence. Honey Singh was the first in the firing line. Songs like “Main Hoon Balatkari” were attributed to him, an accusation he denied then and still denies. Honey Singh may not be the author of two particularly terribly raunchy songs, but he still reveals a lot about what he reveals.

Honey had been out of the picture for years. He talks about his psychological state during these years of forgetting. In fact, it takes more than just courage to let the audience into the dark corners of your mind, talk about your bipolar disorder, break down on camera, and share your vulnerabilities. Much of his defense is put up by his sister Sneha. However, it is the expressions on the reserved father’s face that speak volumes and provide insight into the trauma the family has endured. The fragility of honey emerges.

One could argue that the documentary doesn’t answer all the thorny questions, particularly about drug addiction (he has spoken about it more openly on talk shows). However, he admits that he smokes 20 joints a day and doesn’t want to get back into the vicious cycle of drugs, alcohol and overwork. Ultimately, the 80-minute documentary is not intended to crucify him, but to give him a voice. It shows his courage to climb the ladder of success again, albeit with a pinch of skepticism. As a music lover wonders aloud: He climbed the ladder and came back down. Can he reach the top again?

Mozez not only exposes Honey as a person, but also scores points by taking different views into account. If the good old argument of “This is what the audience wants” appears as an alibi for the socially inappropriate messages in his songs, a journalist’s opinion of “Is he an artist or a delivery person” is valid. Honey may not be as relevant to millennials when he accidentally gets caught up in a model’s indiscretion while filming his second comeback song, “Designer.” When she confuses his popular song “Brown Rang” with AP Dhillon’s “Brown Munde,” the subtle clue becomes clear: here is the original singer who made Brown trendy, and also that the audience has moved on.

But Honey, who was on medication at the time the documentary was made and probably still is, is along for the ride. Where he will go in his second innings is difficult to say as other Punjabi singers have moved into the space he created. He even worked with one of them, Guru Randhawa, in Designer. Apart from Guru, singer Jazzy B can also be seen in the film. He rightly says: “It is easy to criticize artists.” And it is just as easy for artists to fall into the trap that fame and money bring. “Yo Yo Honey Singh: Famous” may not be designed as an outright cautionary tale or a penetrating anatomy of fame, but it is an honest, thought-provoking account of an unfiltered Honey. They have compassion, but not in a tearful way.

In case you’re wondering why he deserves a documentary and have forgotten his chartbusters, this is also a quick look at his countless memorable hits. If the words “he changed the cultural gravity of pop music” don’t sound inappropriate in this light, the same goes for the raw and intimate documentary.