Singer KK passed away on Tuesday in Kolkata. The 53-year-old singer was performing at a college fest in the city when he reportedly fell ill and was declared dead at Kolkata’s CMRI hospital. The singer shot to fame with his debut album Pal, which featured tracks like “Pal”, “Yaaron”. The Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam song “Tadap Tadap Ke” was a big turning point in KK’s career.
Here are some lesser known facts about KK’s career:
1. KK had discussed in an interview that he worked in the hotel industry before moving to Mumbai in 1994 to pursue music. In an interview shared on Sony Music India’s channel, KK shared that he credits his wife Jyoti for her support to pursue his dreams.
2. KK sang over 3500 jingles before he got his break.
3. KK had shared in an interview with Bollywood Hungama, that he was once spotted by Hariharan while he was singing in Delhi and it was there that the veteran singer encouraged him to move to Mumbai.
4. KK’s debut song in Hindi movies was Maachis’ “Chod Aaye Hum Voh Galiyan”. His co-singers were Hariharan, Suresh Wadkar and Vinod Sehgal. Composed by Vishal Bhardwaj, the song was a hit.
5. KK was quite inspired by Kishore Kumar. In an interview with Times of India, KK had shared that Kishore Da was one of his earlier influences.
6. KK was not a trained classical musician. He shared with TOI that he visited a music school for a few days but it was not something that he was cut out for so his father did not push him. “From the beginning, I was able to learn a song by just hearing it, it is something that I’ve been blessed with. I later learned that Kishoreda had never learnt music, so I had even more reasons to not go to a music class,” he said.
7. KK was one of the jury members on the television reality show Fame Gurukul, where Arijit Singh got his first brush with fame. However, KK did not appear in any other reality show as a judge.
8. Apart from Hindi, KK sang in Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Kannada, Bengali, Malayalam and Gujarati.