About Sonu Nigam

Sonu Nigam is an Indian playback singer, music director, dubbing artist and actor. Nigam is a recipient of Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian award.

Nigam sings predominantly in Hindi and Kannada language films but has also sung in Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Odia, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Malayalam, Nepali, Tulu, Chhattisgarhi, Meitei and other Indian languages. Nigam has released a number of non-film albums and acted in some Hindi films. He is known as the "Modern Rafi", a title given to him after his musical idol Mohammad Rafi.

Sonu Kumar Nigam was born on 30 July 1973 to Agam Kumar Nigam and Shobha Nigam in the city of Faridabad, Haryana. His father was from Agra and his mother was from Garhwal. He has two sisters - Meenal Nigam, a yoga therapist, and Teesha Nigam, a professional singer.

Nigam began singing at the age of four, when he joined his father Agam Kumar Nigam on stage to sing Mohammed Rafi's song "Kya Hua Tera Wada". Nigam began accompanying his father on his singing appearances at weddings and parties. He moved to Mumbai with his father to begin his Bollywood singing career at the age of 19. He was trained by Hindustani classical singer Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan.

Nigam identifies as Hindu. He married Madhurima Mishra on 15 February 2002. They have a son.

Nigam had changed his name to Sonu Niigaam citing numerology beliefs, but later decided to go back to his birth name.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sonu Nigam", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.