He's become a lucky mascot on television. SONU NIGAM came to Mumbai to become a playback singer and became instead the most endearing anchor Indian television has ever seen. Sonu Nigam redefined what hosting a programme was all about by refusing to put on an act in his popular show Sa Re Ga Ma and today it remains the most popular show avidly watched by young and the old alike. He himself admits "It's given me a lot - Sa Re Ga Ma allows me to be myself to project my own qualities as a person, as a performer and as a singer. What also makes me particularly happy is that I can speak in Hindi which is my own language rather than English.
Sonu Nigam moved from Delhi to Mumbai 8 years ago and after a
great deal of struggle to meet up with the right people he started getting assignments to sing. So he did a lot of version singing to sustain himself. His versions too became very popular and he was known to sing a large number of songs each day.
Single numbers sung by this youth became very popular notably
Accha sila diya tune mere pyar ka. Yet a real career break remained elusive. Then pop music started happening with a vengeance in Mumbai.
It was then that Sonu Nigam came into his own. He started recording pop albums and suddenly he was catapulted into big time. And today he is known as the most successful pop singer selling the highest number of albums. Yet this boy is different in that he shrugs off the recognition and the stardom and finds his focus in his work whether it be TV anchoring or his singing. After his success as a pop artiste Sonu Nigam has suddenly become a favourite with music composers too and has worked with each composer in the film industry be it Anu Malik, A R Rahman or Sandeep Chowtha among othe rs. His tuning with Anu Malik is very fine and it was his Border that fetched him the Best Singer award. Success has come to Sonu after a struggle so it's sweet; as he says justifiably, "I started performing at the age of three so I've really been singing for 23 years."
