Daler Mehndi Honored with Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Award

Bangalore: Daler Mehndi – the pioneer of Indi-pop – has been awarded with Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Award 2012 for the being the best Singer of the Year.  Mehndi is not only a prolific singer & musician but also a songwriter, composer, performer and an entertainer par excellence. The music connoisseur has never rested on his considerable laurels and released a pop album Tunak Tunak Tumba – another masterwork that stood apart from his previous hits.

Regarded as the Father of Indian pop who laid the foundation for Indian pop, he has elevated pop music to a degree of respectability that it commands today Known as a musician who defies genre boundaries, the classically trained singer also gave the music world a new genre that is called as ‘Rababi’ in 2012, from ghazals, to thumri, to pop, to Sufi from Bhangra to fusing it with Rock. Taking Bhangra beats from the Punjabi vernacular to the cross cultural heady heights of world stage, Mehndi continues to be the undisputed King of Bhangra plastering the craze of Bhangra on the world maps. With super hits like Saade Naal, Kudiyan Sheher Dian, Ru Bu Ru, Rang de Basanti and many more, Bollywood industry too persists to be infectiously gripped in his Mehndi Mania.

With an enviable plethora of prestigious accolades, Mehndi continues to defy his own standards and re-invent his work.  This is not the end of journey that he started as impetuous five years old. Daler musing over his own words as if in prayer utters ‘this is just the beginning…there is a long way to go before I leave a mark’.