Did Sonu Nigam reach the level of excellence of Rafi?

Did Sonu Nigam reach the level of excellence of Rafi?

Sonu Nigam is considered the most powerful playback singer in bollywood films at the moment. The greatest debate that haunts most of the music lovers of the country is that whether Sonu Nigam had reached the level of excellence that Rafi had reached in the 50s and 60s.

The greatest achievement of a singer lies in his acceptability before diverse range of composers and lyricists. As Rafi was classically trained and could adapt any type of song ranging from qawallies to ghazals to soft romantic numbers to westernized rock and roll compositions his demand before the musical community was immense. He is probably the only singer in the 50s and 60s who had sung with compositions of all the leading composers including Naushad, Shankar Jaikishan, Roshan, Madan Mohan, OP Nayyar, Salil Choudhury, Ghulam Mohammad, Vasant Desai, C. Ramchandran, S D Burman, LP, KA, RD Burman, and others and lyricists including Shailendra, Shakeel Badayani, Hasrat Jaipuri, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Kaifi Azmi, Raja Mehendi Ali Khan, Rajender Krishnan, etc. Excepting Manna Dey and Lata Mangeshkar, no other singer were in close diameter of Rafi in the 50s and 60s, as due to lack of classical orientation some of the singers of specifically composer’s singers.

Sonu Nigam had sung songs composed by AR Rehman, Anu Malik, Shankar Ehsaan Loy, Vishal Shekar, Pritam, Shantonu Maitra and many other composers of the present age. In singing difficult and dynamic songs his name had appeared before Udit Narayan, Sukhwinder Singh, or others, including “sathiya sathiya” composed by AR Rehman, “sandese ate hai” composed by Anu Malik, “piyu bole” composed by Shantonu Moitra, “tumko bhula na payega” composed by Sajid Wajid, “ek din kahin” composed by Nusat Fateh Ali Khan, to name a few. But there is strong competition in bollywood music at the moment and Sonu Nigam is not the uncrowned king considering the challenge posed forward by Javed Ali, Atif Aslam and many new singers.

If compared with Rafi, probably the factor where Rafi remains unparallel, were the remote compositions that he had sung with. If Naushad’s “woh duniya ke rakhwale” was pure classically oriented, then SJ’s “aasman se aya farishta” had French background embedded in them, if Roshan’s “jo wada kiya ho” had royal andaz, Madan Mohan’s “tumhari zulfon ki” had ghazal andaz. Besides Rafi had given expression to Salil Choudhury’ s tunes based on east-west blend of music, Jaidev’s urbanized folk songs, SD Burman’s rural folk songs. There is no similarity of “madhuban me radhika nache re” with “aaj kal tere mere pyar ke charche” or “dil jo na keh saka”. The list can go on. The other factor where Rafi had an edge includes the standard of Indian film music reached its zenith in the 50s and 60s which is difficult to attain.

Sonu Nigam is big asset for bollywood music at the moment and has a long way to go. But those who understand music will invariably agree Rafi’s empty space had remained absolutely unfilled. Rafi-lovers only try to fulfill their thirst by hearing the singing style of Sonu Nigam which is to a big extent modeled in Rafi’s style. Sonu Nigam himself also agrees that Rafi was unparallel and will always remained the uncrowned king of bollywood music.

Viewers expect the singers of the present age to listen to Rafi’s song and improve their own level of singing to whatever extent they can.