Karthik(born 7 November 1980 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu) is an Indian playback singer.
Karthik started his professional singing career as a backing vocalist and has since been a playback singer in Tamil cinema while also single in other Indian languages for various composers. Karthik has sung in multiple languages including Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi among others.
Karthik had a good interest in music early in his life and had learnt Carnatic music during his school days. Later on he started singing for his college band and regularly participated in IIT Madras Fest ‘Sarang’.
Being an ardent fan of A. R. Rahman, Karthik always dreamt of meeting the musical great. After searching a lot of avenues, he happened to find out that one of his close friend's cousin was singer Srinivas, who sang many songs for Rahman. During their brief chat, Srinivas asked Karthik to sing a few lines, and was impressed by his voice and asked him to look at singing more seriously. Taking cue, Karthik resumed his singing lessons.
After nearly a year since his meeting with Srinivas, Karthik received a call one night from him. Apparently Rahman needed a fresh voices for backing vocalists for a song from Pukar and Srinivas could not get in touch with one of the singers and then he remembered Karthik and tried to get in touch with him. Ironically Karthik was out with his friends and was not reachable for quite some time. As luck would have it, he managed to get the information just in time and rushed to the recording studio.
Having spent over a year being a backing vocalist, Karthik got his break during the re-recording of One 2 Ka 4. For the background score of one of the scenes in the movie, A. R. Rahman wanted a high-pitched alap and Karthik along with other chorus singers gave a shot at it. Rahman impressed with the voice, asked him stay back for the recording. Karthik grabbed the opportunity with both hands and performed, with Rahman giving him pointers and walking through the alap. He struck gold with this session and soon Rahman asked him to perform for a song Nendhukittaen from the film Star.
When Minnale hit the screens in 2001, the tune on everyone's lips was the catchy riff of Maddy. Very few knew that the tremendously popular track was sung by a young Karthik, not that he’s very much older these days! Nearly a decade and close to a thousand songs later, Karthik's career rainbow seems to be splashing one colour after another with no sign of even sky being the limit.
There are a few very defining characteristics that set Karthik apart. For instance he is one of the few active crooners in the industry today who can effectively blend the intricacies of classical Indian music with global styles reaching from throaty hard rock to a mellower lounge tuning. Be it a poppish Enakoru girlfriend or an emotion riddled Anjalai, Karthik has a versatility that is rare. He is also possibly one of the first singers to perform professionally without the aid of a double-figure orchestra. Playing with a hand-picked bunch of professional musicians which include Roland Bennet, Karthik has certainly laid the clich that audiences do not enjoy improvisations of film tracks, to rest.
With numerous solos, constantly increasing rhythms, pace, life and yet maintaining the spirit of the original, Karthik and his five piece act have been making waves at shows across South India.
Language doesn't seem to be too much of an obstacle for Karthik. Be it Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam or Hindi, chances are most of the chart-toppers are courtesy of the man with the golden voice.
Quite a regular fixture on most South Indian cinema music productions, Karthik is now looking to broaden his musical horizons with forays into the realms of fusion and exploring his potential as a complete musician. With a couple of Filmfare awards and a State Awards collected along the way, there doesn't seem much space for doubt about where he‚isheaded.
Karthik has sung a number of songs for many popular music directors, including A. R. Rahman, Ilayaraaja, Yuvan Shankar Raja ,mickey j meyer and Harris Jeyaraj. Karthik has sung songs in several languages – Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada. Ennaku Oru Girlfriend from the Tamil movie Boys was one of his huge hits as was Oru Maalai from the 2005 film Ghajini. and his songs for TELUGU films for kotha bangaru lokam(nijanga nenanaa..),happydays(arare arare,oh my friend) are very popular. His recent track in 2008, the gaana inspired "Ava Enna" from the 2009 film Vaaranam Aayiram has been well received.
In 2010, he sang a track "Behene De", from Hindi film Raavan, which is widely considered as the biggest song in his career.[1] The track, which remained top in music charts for many continuous weeks, also received rave critical reviews.[1] It was composed by Rahman and penned by Gulzar. Karthik also performed the Tamil and Telugu versions of the same song, titled "Usure Poghudhey" and "Usire Poyene" respectively.
He has composed music for a multi lingual Coca Cola Advertisement (for Rajeev Menon featuring Actor Vijay),and also for Prince Jewellery advertisements. He is the music director of Vasanthabalan's upcoming film Aravaan.
