Udit Narayan

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Udit Narayan
Born	December 1, 1960 (1960-12-01) (age 47)^{[citation needed]}
Origin	Saptari, Nepal
Genre(s)	Playback singer
Occupation(s)	Singer, television personality, actor
Years active	1981–present

Udit Narayan Jha (उदित नारायण झा), popularly known as Udit Narayan is a playback singer in commercial Hindi-, Tamil-, Telugu-, Malayalam-, Kannada-, and Nepali-language cinema. He was born in a village called Bharadah in Saptari, Nepal. Udit Narayan has sung more than 15,000 songs in more than 30 different languages.

1 Career
2 Personal life
3 Notable songs
4 Awards and nominations
5 External links

[edit] Career

Udit Narayan began his career by singing Maithili, Bhojpuri, Bengali, English,Nepal Bhasa,and Nepalese folk songs for Radio Nepal in the early 1970s. In 1978, he moved to Mumbai on a music scholarship. In Mumbai, he got trained in Indian classical music for six years at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. He lives in Mumbai right now.

He got his first break in 1980, when noted music director (composer) Rajesh Roshan asked him to do a song for the Hindi movie "Unees Bees", in which he got opportunity to sing with his inspiration, Mohammed Rafi. But the actual success story of his career, began in 1988 with the superhit Bollywood movie Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, fetching him a Filmfare Award. The film also happened to bring actor Aamir Khan, actress Juhi Chawla and playback singer Alka Yagnik to stardom. After the success of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, he became one of the leading playback singers in the Indian film industry, lending his voice mostly in Aamir Khan movies like Dil, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander, etc. At the same time, he became a well-known celebrity in Nepal and sang in most popular Nepalese movies. He even acted in some Nepalese movies like "Kusume Rumal" and "Pirati" but did not achieved that much success.

Throughout the 1990s, he was one of the most successful singers in India. In 1995, his song "Mehndi Lagake Rakhna" from the movie Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge won him his second Filmfare Award after 7 years. The following year 1996, he got nominated for three songs out of five and won his third award for the song "Pardesi Pardesi" from Raja Hindustani.

He has worked with musicians like Anu Malik, Jatin Lalit, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji, Bappi Lahiri, Vishal Bhardwaj, A. R. Rahman, Nadeem-Shravan, Rajesh Roshan, Shankar Mahadevan, Himesh Reshammiya, Pritam Chakraborty, Vishal-Shekhar etc., and leading directors like Yash Chopra, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Karan Johar, etc. These include Darr, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Dil To Pagal Hai, Mohabbatein, Devdas, Kal Ho Naa Ho, Swades, Veer Zaara, etc.

Udit Narayan is considered as one of the greatest singers of his generation along with Kumar Sanu and Sonu Nigam, whose singing abilities are often compared with legendary singers like Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar. He is famous for his original voice and not following any of the old singers' clans. Renowned singers like Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Anup Jalota, Pankaj Udhas etc., have all collaborated with him.

His repertoire includes songs in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam. At the same time, his discernible Nepalese accent and distinct pronunciation has many critics who find it difficult to decipher words in his songs.

He has worked in Nepalese films as well, in particular for composer Shambhujeet Baskota. During early singing career, he sang songs composed by Shiva Shankar, Natikaji and Gopal Yonzan. In 2004, he released his first private Nepalese album "Upahaar", in which he also sang duet songs with his wife Deepa Jha. It did well and one of the best selling albums of all time. He even ended up winning awards in two major categories - Record of the year and Album of the year during Hits FM Awards 2004, the most popular music awards in Nepal for the same album Upahaar.

He has most frequently sung for actors like Anil Kapoor, Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, Aamir Khan, Akshay Khanna, Saif Ali Khan, Hrithik Roshan etc,. Throughout the years he has sung numerous hit songs for these actors.

Udit Narayan (rightmost) as a judge in Indian Idol-3 alongside Javed Akhtar & Alisha Chinai

[edit] Personal life

Udit Narayan is married and has one son. His wife Deepa Narayan, whom he married in 1985, is an accomplished Nepalese singer, and the two have recorded an album together titled Dil Deewana.

His son Aditya Narayan has also established himself as the voice of child artists in Hindi movies and acted as child artist in hit movies like Pardes, Rangeela, and Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai. His role as a son of actor Salman Khan in the movie Jab Pyar Kisise Hota Hai was widely acclaimed. However, Aditya Narayan has grown up and had taken a break from Bollywood since 2001, on account of his changing voice. He's now back on the scene and is currently hosting Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2007.