Arijit singh biography

He sings predominantly in Hindi and Bengali, but has also performed in various other Indian languages. Singh is regarded as one of the most versatile and successful singers in the history of Indian music and Hindi cinema.

Singh made his career breakthrough after 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.

EARLY LIFE

Arijit Singh was born on 25 April 1987 in Jiaganj, Murshidabad, West Bengal to a Punjabi father and a Bengali mother. He began his music training at a 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 idolised 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 recognised 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 own recording studio. He became a music producer and began composing music and singing pieces for advertisements, news channels and radio stations.

Singh spent 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 programme music by himself.

CAREER

2010–13: Early releases and Aashiqui 2

In 2010, Singh started working with Pritam on three films—Golmaal 3, Crook and Action Replayy. He started with singing scratches in the Telugu Film Industry with the 2010 film Kedi with the song "Neeve Na Neeve Na" composed by Sandeep Chowta. In 2011, Singh made his Bollywood musical debut with the Mithoon composition, "Phir Mohabbat" from Murder 2, which though he recorded it in 2009 was released in 2011. The same year, when he was programming for the song "Raabta" from Agent Vinod (2012), Pritam asked him to sing as well. The part was retained in all four versions of the song, and he was made to sing the entire composition in one of the versions. Apart from Agent Vinod, Arijit dubbed for Pritam in three other films released during the year: Players, Cocktail and Barfi!.

He also sang for Chirantan Bhatt in 1920: Evil Returns for the song "Uska Hi Banana". Glamsham in its review of the song "Uska Hi Banana" wrote that Arijit had sung the song intensely, emotionally and passionately and at a very high pitch.

He sang on Vishal–Shekhar's composition "Duaa" in the film Shanghai. It won him the Mirchi Music Award for Upcoming Male Playback Singer award. He was nominated in the same category for "Phir Le Aya Dil" from Barfi!.

Arijit's major breakthrough came in Aashiqui 2 where he was a lead and key vocalist and came to prominence with the release of the song "Tum Hi Ho" from the movie. The song won him several awards and nominations including Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer.

Arijit continued to work with Pritam, singing "Dilliwaali Girlfriend", "Kabira" and "Ilahi" for Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. Other than singing the encore version of "Kabira", he was the music producer of the track along with "Balam Pichkari" from the same film. Singh sang the song for Phata Poster Nikhla Hero titled "Main Rang Sharbaton Ka", also a composition by Pritam, as well as his song "Dhoka Dhadi" for R... Rajkumar.

He dubbed Shah Rukh Khan in the song "Kashmir Main Tu Kanyakumari" from Chennai Express which was composed by Vishal–Shekhar. Apart from rendering the duet version of "Har Kisi Ko" from Boss along with Neeti Mohan, the year marked his collaboration with Sharib–Toshi on the song "Kabhi Jo Baadal Barse" from Jackpot, and with and Sanjay Leela Bhansali on the semi-classical number, "Laal Ishq" from Goliyon Ki Raasleela: Ram-Leela. Later, Singh picked "Kabhi Jo Baadal Barse" as one of his personal favourite songs, he chose "Tose Naina" from Mickey Virus as "closest to his heart".

2014

In 2014, Singh got the chance to work with two of his favourite music directors, Sajid–Wajid and A. R. Rahman. He performed two tracks on Main Tera Hero and the song "Raat Bhar" from Heropanti for Sajid-Wajid, and dubbed the Hindi version of the song "Medhuvaagathaan" from Kochadaiiyaan titled "Dil Chaspiya" for A. R. Rahman. He rendered three re-mixed songs Amit Trivedi's "Hungama Ho Gaya", a song for Yaariyan, Sharib-Toshi's "Samjhawan" for Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, and "Mast Magan" for 2 States, as well as "Jiya" for Gunday, and Arko Pravo Mukherjee's "Aaj Phir" for Hate Story 2. Singh worked with Vishal Bhardwaj, recording two songs from Haider and with Sachin–Jigar on "Jaise Mera Tu" in Happy Ending. The year marked his collaboration with many other music directors including Tony Kakkar and Palash Muchhal. During the year, he provided vocals for Mithoon on "Humdard" for Ek Villain and "Hai Dil Ye Mera" for Hate Story 2. He worked with Vishal–Shekhar on "Manwa Laage" for Happy New Year, and with Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy on "Sajde" for Kill Dil. He sang two songs on Sharib-Toshi's Zid, and on three tracks for Pritam Chakraborty's Holiday which was arranged by Singh himself. Jeet Gannguli's song Muskurane garnered him the most nominations for the year, while he received two Filmfare nominations for "Suno Na Sangemarmar" and the Sufi song "Mast Magan". Singh picked "Gulon Mein Rang Bhare"—originally sung by Mehdi Hassan and re-written for Haider by Vishal Bhardwaj—as his favourite track of the year.