KK (singer)

Krishnakumar Kunnath
Performing Live at Alive India in Concert, Bangalore, India in Jan 2016
Background information
Birth name	Krishnakumar Kunnath
Also known as	Kay Kay, K. K.
Born	(1970-08-23) 23 August 1970 New Delhi, India
Genres	Playback singing, Indipop
Occupation(s)	Singer, composer
Instruments	Vocal
Years active	1996–present
Labels	Sony Music
Website	themesmerizer.com

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Krishnakumar Kunnath (born 23 August 1970), popularly known as KK or Kay Kay, is an Indian playback singer. He is a prominent singer in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam films.^[1]

Born in Delhi to Malayali parents C. S. Menon and Kanakavalli,^[2] Krishnakumar Kunnath was brought up in New Delhi.^[3] KK sang 3,500 jingles before Bollywood break. He is an alumnus of Delhi's Mount St. Mary school.^[4] He appeared in "Josh of India" song for the support of Indian Cricket Team during Cricket World Cup 1999.^[5] Following this, he released an album called Pal for which he received a Star Screen Award for the Best Solo Album.^[6]

He successfully launched the Album Humsafar 8 years after the first album, in Jan 2008. Humsafar, came eight years after the release of KK's super-hit debut album Pal.[1] It belongs to the pop-rock genre and has a total of 10 songs. Humsafar has two songs – "Din Ho Ya Raat" and "Mehki Hawa" – from Pal, KK's earlier album. The album has a fun-filled romantic number – "Aasman Ke", featuring the singer and a south Indian model, Suhasi Goradia Dhami, in the video. "Humsafar", the title track, an interplay of English and Hindi lyrics, is about one's conscience and how it is a constant companion in the journey of life. One of the songs, "Yeh Kahan", was penned seven years before the release and "Dekho Na", a rock number, was written six years ago. The rest of the six songs came about in the last two years before the release. Other songs in the album include "Rain Bhai Kaari", a mix of Bengali Baul with rock and a tinge of S D Burman, and "Cineraria", a fun-filled English ballad. His latest song "Kabhi Aayine Pe Likha Tujhe" from the movie Hate Story 2, length 5:54, is well received by the audience and is also among the top 10 chart busters. KK has established himself as a successful playback singer of India.

Personal life

KK with his wife Jyothy, son Nakul Krishna and daughter Taamara

KK married his childhood sweetheart Jyothy Krishna in 1991.^[7] His son Nakul Krishna sang a song "Masti" from his latest album Humsafar with him.^[8] KK also has a daughter named Taamara who loves playing piano according to KK. KK claims that his family is his source of energy.

Vocals and musical style

KK has been greatly influenced by the singer Kishore Kumar and music director R. D. Burman. KK is the only singer who can't attune to the concept that a singer's face must be prominently seen. KK believes in "A singer must be heard.".^[9] KK has never undergone any formal training in music.

Career

After graduating from Kirori Mal College, Delhi University in commerce. KK had a brief stint of eight months as marketing executive in the hotel industry. After few years, in 1994, he moved to Mumbai.^[7]

Playback singing

Performing Live at The JockeyClub Auditorium, Hong Kong

In 1994, he gave his demo tape to Louis Banks, Ranjit Barot and Lesle Lewis to get a break in the music arena. He was called by UTV and he sang a jingle for Santogen Suiting ad.^[8] In a span of four years, he has sung more than 3,500 jingles in 11 Indian languages. He got the first break in Mumbai from UTV to sing jingles. He considers Lesle Lewis as his mentor for giving him his first jingle to sing in Mumbai.^[7] KK was introduced as a playback singer with A. R. Rahman's hit song "College Styley" and "Hello Dr." from Kadir's Kadhal Desam and then "Strawberry Kannae" from AVM Productions's musical film Minsara Kanavu (1997).^[10] Pritam Chakraborty is also a fan of him. He got his Bollywood break with "Tadap Tadap Ke Is Dil" from Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999). He has also won prestigious National Award for 'Tu Aashiqui Hai' from movie Jhankar Beats in 2004.^[10] However, prior to this song he had sung a small portion of the song "Chod aaye hum" from Gulzar's Maachis. Till now, KK has sung more than 500 songs in Hindi and more than 200 songs in Telugu, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam languages.^[11] He has worked with leading music composers such as Rajesh Roshan, Ilayaraja, R. D. Burman, Vishal Bhardwaj, Ismail Darbar, Himesh Reshammiya, Anu Malik, Lesle Lewis, Bappi Lahiri, Anand-Milind, Vishal-Shekhar, Ajay-Atul, Vipin Patwa, Ashok Bhadra, M. M. Keeravani, Vidyasagar, Mani Sharma, A. R. Rahman, Yuvan Shankar Raja, Harris Jayaraj, G. V. Prakash Kumar, Deva, R. P. Patnaik, Devi Sri Prasad, Ramana Gogula, Amit Trivedi, Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Ranjit Barot, Abhishek Ray, Adnan Sami, Pritam Chakraborty, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Shujaat Khan, Gaurav Dagaonkar, Bapi–Tutul, Deepak Dev, Jeet Gannguli, Viju Shah, Jatin-Lalit, Sachin-Jigar, Raghav Sachar, Anand Raj Anand, Uttam Singh, Salim-Sulaiman, Sajid-Wajid, Shantanu Moitra, Roop Kumar Rathod, Ashutosh Phatak, Sohail Sen, Sharib-Toshi, Mithoon, Sachin Gupta, Sandesh Shandilya, Mahesh Shankar, Chirantan Bhatt, Monty Sharma, Aadesh Shrivastava, Sanjeev-Darshan, Nadeem-Shravan, Ram Sampath, Anupam Amod, Parikrama, Rashid Khan, Ankit Tiwari, Shamir Tandon, Siddharth-Suhaas, Nitin Raikwar, Santhosh Nair etc. KK has sung many songs with Kavita Krishnamurthy, Alka Yagnik, Shreya Ghoshal, Sunidhi Chauhan, Udit Narayan, Shilpa Rao, Tulsi Kumar, Dominique Cerejo, Sonu Nigam Shaan and others. He has lent his voice to the biggest hit song this year (2014) "Tune Maari Entriyaan" among several others in Gunday. KK's new song from the movie Bajrangi Bhaijaan called "Tu Jo Mila" has already became a rage, many times remained No.1 on iTunes.

Albums and television

KK Performing Live at Alive India in Concert (Bangalore), Jan 2016

In the year 1999, Sony Music had just been launched in India and they were looking to launch a new artiste. KK was selected as the new artiste and he came out with a solo album titled Pal with Lesle Lewis composing the music. Pal was the first album released by KK under Sony Music for which he got the prestigious Screen award as best singer. He is very good friend of Jeevan deep prakash-- Only resource of OCMC in India )

On 22 January 2008, KK released his second album Humsafar after a gap of eight years.^[12] The songs "Aasmaan Ke", "Yeh Kahan Mil Gaye Hum" and "Rain Bhai [Maajhi]" are famous songs from this album, besides, KK had also sung an English Rock Ballad "Cineraria". The title track, "Humsafar" is a mix of English and Hindi lyrics. Humsafar has 10 songs, out of which eight have been composed by KK. The other two songs were taken from his previous album Pal.

KK has also sung many television serial songs like Just Mohabbat, Shaka Laka Boom Boom, Kuch Jhuki Si Palkein, Kavyanjali, Just Dance . He has also sung the theme song for Star Parivaar Awards 2010 with Shreya Ghoshal. KK appeared on television too. He was invited as jury member for a talent hunt show Fame Gurukul.^[13]

KK participated in the latest musical venture of MTV India Coke Studio. There he sang one qawwali Chadta Suraj along with Sabri Brothers and a recomposed version of his exquisite track Tu Aashiqui Hai from movie Jhankaar Beats. He also came in Sureeli Baat in Aaj Tak Chanel. He has also performed in Sony Mix TV Show and MTV Unplugged Season 3, aired on MTV 11 January 2014.KK was in Dubai for his concert 'Salaam Dubai 2014'in April. He also did recent concerts in Goa, Dubai & Chennai. Hong kong.Recently he has recorded two songs for Pritam at studio 301 in Sydney.

On 29th August 2015, KK appeared in the glorious television singing reality show Indian Idol Junior Season 2 to cheer up the emerging singers of India where he performed Khuda Jaane, Mera Pehla Pehla Pyar, Desi Boyz, Ajab Si and many more songs with the junior idols and Tu Aashiqui Hai with Vishal Dadlani, Aashayein with Salim Merchant and Tadap Tadap Ke with Sonakshi Sinha . After 10 years, He appeared in a Singing reality show as a judge and guest jury member.

On 13th September 2015, KK came in Baaton Baaton Mein in Sony Mix.

Solo Albums

• Pal (1999)
• Humsafar (2008)
• Soulful Voice (2011)
• #Now Playing: KK Hits (2014)
• KK: Best Of Me (2015)
• Party Time (2015)
• Musical Bond: Pritam & KK (2015)
• Aankhen

Discography

Awards and honours

Tamil

• Hub Awards 2005-Best playback Singer Male-Film-7G Rainbow Colony

Malayalam

• Eenam-Swaralaya Singer of the Year Award 2012

Hindi

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Krishnakumar Kunnath.

• KK at the Internet Movie Database
• KK on Twitter