Mumbai: Legendary Bollywood playback singer Kumar Sanu recently made some startling revelations about his long musical journey, opening up about the dark underbelly of the 1990s music industry. The iconic singer, who ruled millions of hearts with his romantic tracks, confessed that intense pressure from the “movie mafia” forced him to sing a few songs with double meanings and obscene lyrics during his prime.
Born on October 20, 1957, in Kolkata, West Bengal, Kumar Sanu began his musical career in the late 1980s. He quickly became the voice of the 90s, recording over 22,000 songs and winning the prestigious Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer for five consecutive years. Despite his massive success, the veteran singer admitted in a recent interview that not every song he sang during that era was good.
Sanu revealed that he strictly wanted to stay away from obscenity in his music. “It was my principle that I would never bring vulgarity into my songs,” he stated. However, he admitted that he could not always stick to his rules due to immense external pressure. “Many times, the pressure to sing such songs was so high that I felt I had to do it. Otherwise, things would not be right,” he explained, hinting at the strong influence of the movie mafia at the time.
Despite the coercion, the singer maintained his overall stance against vulgar music. He proudly noted that out of his thousands of tracks, only one or two songs, like Ruk Gaya Tabla Tabele Mein, had suggestive or obscene lyrics. He strictly avoided such projects for the rest of his career, remaining true to his core principles even today.
While acknowledging that refusing such songs cost him several lucrative opportunities and caused professional damage, Sanu expressed absolutely no regrets. Taking a stand for clean music remained more important to him than bowing to industry pressure. On a brighter note, the celebrated singer recently released a brand new patriotic track titled Aye Mere Watan on Independence Day. The song is penned by Ahmed Siddiqui and composed by Raja Ali.