NEPOTISM THEN AND NOW: ’90S SINGERS GIVE THEIR TAKE

After Sonu Nigam sparked a debate around favouritism in the music industry, many came out and slammed the whole culture of powerplay. This makes one wonder whether things were like this in earlier decades also, or is it a recent phenomenon.

“Yeh bahut zyada ho raha hai. It wasn’t like this in the ’90s,” Abhijeet Bhattacharya tells us and adds, “A song did go from one singer to another, but it was authentically, not like this. A film director and music composer used to decide which singer they want, not some company or actor.”

The singer further asks, “Who is Salman Khan to decide who should sing a song? Who is Salman to take a singer’s song and sing it himself? This is a clear case of favouritism.”

Never been attached to any music label, Kavita Krishnamurthy points out how all this is “new” to her. She says, “Nepotism never happened in my time. A producer could never have the courage to tell an RD Burman or Khayyam saab or OP Nayyar or Ravindra Jain ki aap iss singer ko le lijiye.”

She goes on to add that the only criteria back then was “aawaaz suit karni chahiye; composers made songs for different voices like Alka (Yagnik), Anuradha (Paudwal) and me”.

Ila Arun calls out the music bigwigs for playing a “manipulative game”. She says good music composer can’t be successful now because there’s lobbying and nepotism. “The mafia is running the show. This is a deliberate attempt of killing somebody’s future. Earlier things were healthy and transparent. Now there are only five or six composers whose names are doing the rounds, and that’s all because of the gunda culture,” she rues.

Udit Narayan, meanwhile, refrains from commenting on the debate, as he feels “people might think I’m not getting as much work and that’s why I’m talking”, but the singer acknowledges that things have taken a turn for worse in the recent years. “The time during the ’90s was the golden era. Today’s generation is also very talented but they want to become stars overnight, and that’s why they seek means to get instant success. That’s the reason behind so many remixes,” he opines.

Nepotism never happened in my time. A producer could never have the courage to tell an RD Burman or Khayyam saab... ki aap is singer ko le lijiye.

KAVITA KRISHNAMURTHY