Singer Vivek Hariharan, who won immense appreciation for his work in Phillauri and Kaalakaandi, is at the moment elated over the Radio Mirchi Awards nominations for his recent song ‘Challa’. The much-popular song from Vicky Kaushal starrer ‘Uri’ topped all the charts last year owing to the modern and new age vibe of the anthemic song.
Vivek has been nominated in two categories – ‘Song of the year’ and ‘male vocalist of the year’ awards, for which the results will be announced on February 19.
Overwhelmed with the response so far, Vivek said, “First of all, I am thankful to the Radio Michi team & jury for nominating me in both the categories. Knowing that your work is being appreciated and acknowledged by the audience as well as the music fraternity gives satisfaction beyond words.”
“Having said that, its very important for me to enjoy my work. While recording a song, I don’t think much about all these aspects – awards, whether the song will be a hit or a flop, the audience and jury’s verdict on the song, etc. I believe in the fact that one must enjoy what they do. If you feel you are adding value and love collaborating with fellow musicians to build something special, you are already doing right. For example, I have always loved working with Shashwat Sachdev since Phillauri. Challa in comparison to my earlier collaboration with him allowed me to try my hands on something new like A capella with rock vocals and I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
“My only aim is to explore different sides and shades as a vocalist and learn as much as I can while collaborating with good musicians,” added the musician who stepped in the industry with Phillauri four years back with ‘Dum Dum’ and later went on to sing the title track for Kaalakaandi and now the super-hit song ‘Challa’.
Speaking of how he came on board for the latter song, Vivek stated, “I was already on board for the project as the executive music producer of the album. I oversee the quality control of our album. While working on the song, Shashwat wanted to make the song sound different, modern and powerful. That’s how I came on board to open the song. Challa had to be aggressive, modern still had to have nuances of being Indian and anthemic”.
Vivek accredits the success to having met good musicians and people in the industry. On the work front, the young singer also contributed to projects like Phillauri, Veere Di Wedding, Selection Day (Netflix) & URI – The Surgical Strike as the Executive music producer.
Apart from that, he has sung a song for the Telugu and Tamil release of the Hollywood film ‘Hotel Mumbai’ starring Dev Patel & Anupam Kher which has been received well globally (released recently). The songs ‘Ideraa Bharatga Deshan’ (Telugu) and ‘Enga Peru Indiya Thaanga’ (Tamil) have been released by Zee Music a few days back.
