Arijit Singh

He was born in 1987 in Jiaganj, Murshidabad, to a Punjabi father and Bengali mother, and trained from childhood in Hindustani classical music under Rajendra Prasad Hazari and in tabla under Dhirendra Prasad Hazari. He reached the finals of Fame Gurukul in 2005 and, after it, worked behind the scenes in Mumbai — programming and arranging for Pritam, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Vishal-Shekhar and Mithoon — while singing scratch tracks. Phir Mohabbat (Murder 2, 2011) and Raabta (Agent Vinod) were his first notable releases; Tum Hi Ho (2013) made him famous within a week and won the Filmfare Award.

Pritam has written most of his biggest songs — Channa Mereya, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Gerua, Agar Tum Saath Ho with A.R. Rahman, Kesariya, Shayad, Satranga — and he has won the National Award twice (Binte Dil, Padmaavat; Kesariya, Brahmastra) and the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer seven times. He sings in Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and other languages, composes and produces, and avoids the public life of a star; he lives in Jiaganj with his wife Koel and children, and works in charity in Murshidabad.

Arijit's voice is a soft, slightly husky tenor with a trained singer's intonation and a pop singer's intimacy, placed close to the microphone, with a signature catch — a tiny break — on the emotional note that listeners took to immediately. He can sing in a whisper and still be in tune, and that quiet, confessional manner is what the earphone decade wanted.