BIOGRAPHY
Arijit Singh (born 25 April 1987) is an Indian playback singer. He sings predominantly in Hindi and Bengali but has also performed in various other Indian languages.
Singh began his career when he participated in the contemporary reality show, Fame Gurukul in 2005, and was discovered by filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Kumar Taurani. At the start of his singing career, he received nominations for the Upcoming Male Vocalist of the Year award at the 2013 Mirchi Music Awards for renditions of “Phir Le Aya Dil” and “Duaa”, winning the award for the latter. Singh received widespread recognition with the release of “Tum Hi Ho” and “Chahun Main Ya Naa” in 2013. Singh was declared the most-streamed Indian artist of the year 2019 by Spotify.
EARLY LIFE
Arijit Singh was born on 25 April 1987 in Jiaganj, Murshidabad, West Bengal to Kakkar Singh, a Lahori Sikh father and a Bengali mother. He began his music training at a very young age at home. His maternal aunt trained in Indian classical music, and his maternal grandmother used to sing. His maternal uncle played the tabla, and his mother also sang and played the tabla. He studied at Raja Bijay Singh High School and later at the Sripat Singh College, a University of Kalyani affiliate. According to him he “was a decent student, but cared more about music” and his parents decided to train him professionally. He was taught Indian classical music by Rajendra Prasad Hazari and trained in tabla by Dhirendra Prasad Hazari. Birendra Prasad Hazari taught him Rabindra Sangeet (songs written and composed by Rabindranath Tagore) and pop music. At the age of three, he started training under the Hazari brothers, and at the age of nine, he got a scholarship from the government for training in vocals in Indian classical music.
Growing up, he listened to Mozart, Beethoven and, Bengali classical music. He idolized musicians like Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Rashid Khan, Zakir Hussain and Anand Chatterjee, and enjoyed listening to Kishore Kumar, Hemant Kumar and, Manna Dey.
In 2014, Singh married Koyel Roy, a childhood friend and a neighbor of his. They have two children. Singh currently resides in Andheri, Mumbai.
EARLY CAREER
Singh’s musical career began when his guru Rajendra Prasad Hazari, who felt that “Indian classical music was a dying tradition”, insisted he leave his hometown and participate in the reality show Fame Gurukul (2005) at the age of 18. He was eliminated by audience polling, finishing in sixth place.
During the show, filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali recognized his talent and had him sing “Yun Shabnami” a song scheduled to be used in his upcoming film Saawariya. During production, the script changed and the song was no longer required. It was never released. After the Fame Gurukul, Kumar Taurani, the head of Tips, signed him for an album which was never released.
He participated in another reality show 10 Ke 10 Le Gaye Dil and won. He chose to move to Mumbai in 2006 to freelance, staying in a rented room in the Lokhandwala area of the city. He invested the prize money of ₹10 lakh from 10 ke 10 Le Gaye Dil to build his recording studio. He became a music producer and began composing music and singing pieces for advertisements, news channels and radio stations.
Singh spent a part of his early musical career as a music programmer and music producer for music directors such as Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Vishal-Shekhar, Mithoon, Monty Sharma and Pritam. While working with other composers he supervised the vocals, and the chorus sections, but it was while working with Pritam, that he began to produce and program music by himself.
PERSONAL LIFE
According to Arijit Singh, apart from being a singer, he is a badminton player, a writer, a movie freak and a documentary maker. He also likes cricket, football and his favorite sportsmen are Sachin Tendulkar, Lance Klusener, Sourav Ganguly, and Jonty Rhodes. He is an ardent football fan, and a self-proclaimed Manchester United fan. He has also expressed a wish to sing the anthem for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. In badminton, he likes Saina Nehwal.
Arijit enjoys listening to retro songs by Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi and the classical and ghazal songs along with the music of Coldplay. He expressed his desire to work with artist Norah Jones someday as he loves her music. He says he is uncomfortable with all the attention that fame has brought.
In an interview given to Mid-day.com in the December 2016, Arijit said “Independent music in India needs to be redefined” and he is working on some “independent music projects” but he believes that Bollywood music overpowers independent music, and there is a lack of infrastructure and platform for independent music in India, and it is difficult to produce it in India.
AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS
Singh was awarded the Wizcraft Honour for the Best Live Performer, and was one of the top 10 artists from across the world to be featured at The SSE Arena, Wembley in the SSE Live Awards 2016.
Singh has received four Mirchi Music Awards, six Filmfare Awards, a Stardust Award, three IIFA Award, two Zee Cine Awards and two Screen Awards. He received Filmfare awards for five consecutive years from 2016 to 2020. He received nine awards from ten nominations for the song “Tum Hi Ho” from 2013 film Aashiqui 2. He also won the prestigious (IIFA) award in the category of “The Best Male Singer” for the song “Tum Hi Ho” in 2014.
In September 2014, The National Indian Students Union UK honored Singh with the Youth Icon – Music Award. He was named the most popular artist of 2014 by Hungama Digital Media Entertainment after winning an online poll conducted by music streaming website hungama.com. Forbes India magazine’s 100 Celebrity List placed him at rank 15 in 2016.
At the seventh Mirchi Music Awards in 2015, he was honored with the award for Best Male Vocalist for his rendition of the song “Samjhawan”. He was nominated for the 60th Filmfare Awards, held in 2015 under Best Male Playback Singer category for two songs “Mast Magan” and “Suno Na Sangemarmar”. He was voted online as the Best Male Singer by the readers of the IBN Live for the song “Muskurane”. He won Best Male Playback Singer award at the 61st Filmfare Awards, held in 2016 for the rendition of the song “Sooraj Dooba Hain”.
The GiMA, honoured him with awards for his rendition of the song “Soch Na Sake”, He was subsequently honored for his rendition of the most popular film and radio song “Gerua”, and the most streamed song “Sanam Re”. The Times of India Film Awards 2016, nominated him for his rendition of three songs “Aayat”, “Chunar” and “Hamari Adhuri Kahani”. In late 2016, Arijit received his first Stardust Award for Best Playback Singer (Male) for the song “Channa Mereya”. In 2017, he was nominated at Mirchi Music Awards under Male Vocalist of The Year category for four songs “Ae Dil Hai Mushkil”, “Channa Mereya”, “Bolna” and “Nashe Si Chadh Gayi”. He won the award for the song “Ae Dil Hai Mushkil”. He received a couple of nominations under Male Playback Singer category for “Channa Mereya” and “Ae Dil Hai Mushkil” from Ae Dil Hai Mushkil film in various award ceremonies in late 2016 and 2017.
He won the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer for the song “Tum Hi Ho” in 2014. He also won the (IIFA) award in the category of Best Male Singer for the song “Tum Hi Ho” in 2014. At the 7th Mirchi Music Awards 2015, he was awarded the Best Male Vocalist for his rendition of the song “Samjhawan”. Arijit had won IBN Live Movie Award for the song “Muskurane” in the Best Playback Singer category. He won Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer for the song “Sooraj Dooba Hain” in 2016. The GiMA awarded him for his rendition of the song “Soch Na Sake”, he was awarded for the song “Gerua”, and the most-streamed song “Sanam Re”. He was awarded the Best Male Singer for the song “Channa Mereya at the Stardust Awards 2016. In 2017, at the 62nd Filmfare Awards, he won Best Male Playback Singer Award for the title song “Ae Dil Hai Mushkil”, and also won the Male Vocalist of The Year award at 2017 Mirchi Music Awards, for his rendition of the song. He was awarded the Best Male Playback Singer award for the song at the Zee Cine Awards in 2017.
At the 23rd Star Screen Awards, Singh was awarded the title of Best Male Playback Singer for his rendition of the song “Zaalima” and songs of Jagga Jasoos.
At the 63rd Filmfare Awards of 2018, he was awarded the Best Male Playback Singer for “Roke Na Ruke Naina” from Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya and was nominated for “Zaalima” from Raees. With this win, he won the Filmfare award for four consecutive years.
At the 66th National Film Awards of 2019, he was awarded with the Best Male Playback Singer for “Binte Dil” from Padmaavat.
Singh was awarded the Best Male Playback Singer for his rendition of the song “Ae Watan” from the film Raazi at the International Indian Film Academy awards. Arijit singh is awarded Filmfare award for best male playback singer for the song “Kalank” from the movie Kalank, with this he won the award for a record five consecutive times and six times overall.
The contents of this page are sourced from Wikipedia article on 22 July 2020. The contents are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
