Sonu Nigam: The Master Of Melody

After becoming Bollywood’s most-loved voice, Sonu Nigam made the bold choice of cutting back on playback singing a few years ago. The stage was always his home, he says.

- Karishma Upadhyay

Sonu Nigam was always meant for the stage. Even his four-year-self knew that, which is why he started bawling while watching his father Agam Kumar Nigam perform in the late ’70s. “He was singing ‘Kya hua tera vaada…’ [a song sung by the late Mohammed Rafi—a legend Nigam would repeatedly be compared with over the years—in Hum Kisise Kum Nahin] and I was desperate to join him,” recalls the playback singer.Seated with him in the audience was his mother who relented eventually. “I sang that song with him,” says Nigam, now 42, every detail fresh in his mind.

The stage and Nigam have been inseparable since. “When I am on the stage, I feel like there is nobody. When I get off, I am just a bundle of energy… the high is so great that I find it tough to get back to [being] normal,” he says.

Regarded as one of the most versatile and soulful singers since his debut in the early 1990s, Nigam’s voice has enthralled people across age groups and geographies. Though he has consciously cut down on playback over the last few years, the few songs he does, like ‘Love is a waste of time’ (PK, 2014) and ‘Sapna jahan’ (Brothers, 2015), become chartbusters. “Sonu is a combination of extreme talent, hard work and intelligence,” says Shantanu Moitra, music director of films such as Parineeta (2002) and PK.

Re-evaluating success