Kabir Suman

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Kabir Suman

Origin	Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Years active	1992 - present
Genres	Modern Bengali Songs, Rabindra Sangeet

Kabir Suman (born 1950), is a Kolkata-based modern Bengali singer-songwriter, guitarist, and poet. He changed his name from Suman Chattopadhaya to Kabir Suman (Bangla: কবীর সুমন) in the early 2000s, after marrying the Bangladeshi singer Sabina Yasmin and embracing Islam. He shot to fame in the 1990s with albums such as Tomake Chai (I Want You) and Boshe Anko (Sit-and-Draw Contest).

His contemporary urban, socially consicous songs draw upon both Bengali adhunik and Western folk and protest music. His work has been a major influence in the development of the Bengali songs, which has influenced bands like Chandrabindoo, and has grown to become a major movement in contemporary Bengali music. Most of his songs are played solo with just a synthesiser or a guitar. Like many Bengali singers, Suman has also recorded albums of Rabindra Sangeet (Songs of Rabindranath), starting in the late-1990s.

Suman's primary training was in Indian classical music and Rabindra Sangeet, and he picked up Western folk forms while living abroad. From 1975 to 1989 he worked as a broadcast journalist working overseas, living in Germany, where he worked for German International Radio, and in the United States, where he worked for Voice of America's Bengali language service. He finished his second contract with German International Radio in 1989, and returned to Kolkata. He released his first album, Tomake Chai, in 1992. Since then he has released over ten albums, his most recent one being '13' - Taero in 2006.

In early 2000 when he became a Muslim to marry Sabina Yasmin, he changed overnight from a left-leaning non-believer to a devout Muslim. His wife Maria, who had accompanied him to Calcutta, left him and took their little daughter with her.