Sonu Nigam Career

Early years and playback singing

Sonu Nigam began his singing career at the age of three, when he joined his father on stage to sing Mohammed Rafi's "Kya Hua Tera Vaada, Wo Kasam Wo Irada." From then on Sonu accompanied his father on his singing appearances at weddings and parties. In his teenage years he successfully participated in several music competitions. He moved to Mumbai with his father to begin his Bollywood singing career at the age of 19.

His initial years in Mumbai proved to be a struggle, beginning by singing covers of Mohammad Rafi songs, mainly for a number of Rafi Ki Yaadein albums released by T-Series. T-Series promoter Gulshan Kumar played a key role in identifying Nigam's talent by giving him a chance to reach a larger audience. These albums contributed to T-Series for some years although Nigam's singing style was regarded by some to be like that of a "Rafi clone". Nigam's first movie song as a playback singer was Janam (1990), which was never officially released. He also got a break in radio commercials until he appeared on the popular TV show Sa Re Ga Ma, after which there was no turning back. He was trained by classical singer Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan.

Nigam started hosting Sa Re Ga Ma in 1995 with the first episode airing on 1 May 1995. The television singing talent competition soon became one of the most popular shows on Indian television. Soon after, he sang "Accha Sila Diya" on the album Bewafa Sanam (1995), which was very successful. Singing offers started pouring in thereafter, albeit slowly at first. He rose to fame with the Anu Malik-composed song "Sandese Aate Hain," in Border in 1997. Sonu's Album "Deewana" with T series released in 1999, identified his talent of singing romantic songs and remains one of the most successful album ever, Sonu's image as a 'Rafi clone' changed after his rendition of the Nadeem-Shravan-composed song "Yeh Dil Deewana" in Pardes in the same year. Since then, he has created a unique style and has become a role model for emerging vocal talent in India.

Over the years, Nigam has become a major force in the Indian music industry. He has provided playback singing for a large number of Hindi movies and won many awards. His rendition of the title song of the film Kal Ho Naa Ho has been highly popular. He is recognized for his singing of romantic, rock, sad, and patriotic songs. Nigam has sung songs in many languages besides Hindi, including Kannada, Bengali, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, English, Bhojpuri, Urdu, Nepali,Chhattisgarhi, Malayalam and Marathi.

His Kannada album Neene Bari Neene released in 2009.