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A. R. Rahman, Sukhwinder Singh & Sapna Awasthi
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
A. R. Rahman, Sukhwinder Singh & Sapna Awasthi · Chaiyya Chaiyya comes from Dil Se.., a 1998 Hindi film by director Mani Ratnam. Three names stand behind the song. A. R. Rahman composed the music, one of India's best-known film composers, who often worked with Mani Ratnam. Sukhwinder Singh sang the lead vocal, together with Sapna Awasthi.
Music and breakthrough
Sukhwinder Singh was born in 1971 in Amritsar in the Punjab. As a boy he did athletics, but then music won out over sprinting. He took singing lessons with the Punjabi musician B. S. Narang and began a career in music at seventeen. First he worked as an arranger for the composer duo Laxmikant and Pyarelal and sang in choruses. As a playback singer, someone who records the songs for actors who only lip-sync on screen, he gained wide recognition thanks to Chaiyya Chaiyya. For it he won the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer.
Influence
In Indian film the singing belongs to the story, but the singers stay out of sight. The public often knows the songs better than the actors who sing them on screen. Singh later also worked on Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire, which won an Oscar for best original song in 2009. In this way the sound of Bollywood, in the hands of Rahman and his singers, travelled far beyond India.
Listening
Chaiyya Chaiyya · A. R. Rahman, Sukhwinder Singh & Sapna Awasthi, 1998Apple Music ↗