Mika turns mentor

Mika Singh.

Mika Singh, who has a large following of music lovers, has a created a niche for himself with his unique style and voice. Besides giving Punjabi music a distinct identity he has belted out songs like “Mauja Hi Mauja”, “Dhinka Chika” and many more which continue to be popular. His new song album titled “Billo” will be released soon.

The singer who has been appearing regularly on different talent shows will now be seen on Zee TV’s show- Sa Re Ga Ma Pa as a mentor. In a chat with The Hindu he throws light on his role in the show, voice modulation and the ban on Pakistani artists performing in the country.

Edited excerpts

Your role inSa Re Ga Ma Pa?

I am one of the mentors on the show along with Pritam Chakraborty and Sajid-Wajid. Here I must tell that we will not be judging the contestants but will groom them. This time the channel has appointed a 30-member jury who are music maestros. I have been part of other musical reality shows, but this is the show I always wanted to be a part of. This is the most awaited music reality show. My involvement goes beyond music. For instance, there are two participants Hashmat and Sultana who come from a very poor family living in a one-room house. I have promised them to build their house so that they can train better and achieve their dreams

In the past you have been associated with some songs like “Ae Ganpat” and “Sari Duniya...”, whose lyrics were found objectionable by some people.

As far as the lyrics of the songs are concerned, I have got nothing to do with it and the whole credit goes to music directors Pritam Da and Sajid-Wajid. I just did my job. Here, I must tell that people like me who come from villages and small town want to get associated with such great music directors without looking or commenting at anything.

Talking about the songs you mentioned, I must say that these songs were appreciated by the audience and they love it, but you will not find objectionable lyrics in my compositions.

Onsinging in different voices for different actors and modulating his voice for Shahid Kapoor and Salman Khan.

What happened before, they required three singers for three actors, but now I have changed this trend. I sing one song and make four actors dance on it and the voice suits all four of them, like “Aye Ganpat” and “Singh Is King”, where five actors performed. I make a strategy to make it work and it has worked so far.

I had sung songs for nearly every big name in the film industry, be it Akshay Kumar or Salman Khan. I have to make some adjustments keeping in mind the persona of the actors. For example, for Salman Khan you need a powerful voice and for Shahid Kapoor a romantic soft voice is required.

Why is that today’s songs do not have a long shelf life?

Some three-four decades back we only had Hindi songs and everyone had to listen to them, but today we have different songs in different languages like Punjabi, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Marathi and so on. The audience choose their type of songs.

On cancellation of performances by Pakistani artists

I feel very sad about it. Music has no language. Cricket and music are two different things. Cricket is played between countries and as far as music is concerned, anybody can listen to it anywhere in the world. I listen to Michael Jackson and I also love Bengali songs. How can anybody ban it? I am a big fan of Ghulam Ali Sahib. Whenever he is in Delhi he stays at my place. Recently I had a show in Delhi and he was there in the audience.