To have my voice in the title track of an iconic film like Coolie No. i was a big deal for me personally! -Raj Pandit

Salim of Salim-Sulaiman fame calls him the backbone of Salim-Sulaiman. Meet the very talented Raj Pandit who started his career as a child prodigy and ended up becoming a music sensation in the Hindi Film Industry.

- 

You were known as a child prodigy and have been singing from the age of 3. Could you describe your musical journey?

Having a musical environment at home, it was very natural for me to be inclined towards music. My mother, Neerja Pandit is a folk singer from Kashmir so from a very young age, I was always around her whenever she would practice. At the age of 4, I first started learning the tabla and my musical foundation was built on Hindustani classical music and rhythm. As I grew older, I would often accompany my mom to her recordings and there I happened to meet Tauseef Akhtar (well-known Ghazal singer/ composer) on one such occasion. He rightly spotted my curiosity for music technology and recommended that I also learn piano and music production. So I did and that opened up a whole new horizon of western classical music for me. Eventually, by the age of 11, I started with the basics of music production and would often record melodies that I composed and would even put together basic tracks for them too. I ended up working on a few Kashmiri folk albums with my mom - all recorded and mixed at my music room to the best of my ability at the time. That gave me the confidence to continue exploring and trying to produce new styles and genres of music.

You are fan of maestro A R Rahman, have you met him? You have also recreated his music…

Who isn’t a fan of ‘A R Rahman’! He’s truly an icon of our country and I’ve been following his music since childhood, like most of us.