Arjun (singer)

Arjun rose to attention following an R&B cover version of the Tamil song "Why This Kolaveri Di"[2][3] which was uploaded on YouTube in December 2011. Arjun's R&B Remix ("How could you do this to me?") of "Why This Kolaveri Di" attracted over 3 million YouTube views in one month,[4] He was later featured on CNN, NDTV and Star News. The song now has over 204 million views.

Arjun is a multi-instrumentalist, and plays the guitar, piano, bass, drums, and flute, in addition to singing and beat-boxing. He has had a growing presence on YouTube and on social media since 2011. He has currently over 750 million views on YouTube, over 1,500,000 Facebook fans, 350,000 Instagram followers, and 110,000 Twitter followers. He has performed on every continent.

Arjun became known for his fusion of contemporary Western and Eastern sounds, combining R&B with elements of South Asian music. [5] Arjun was nominated for ‘Best Newcomer‘ at the ‘Brit Asia Music Awards 2011’.[6] In December 2011, His song ‘Stargazer’ was voted the number 2 song on the first ever Asian Video Chart on Kiss Tv (No.1 was A.R Rahman's group ‘Super Heavy’, which included Mick Jagger & Joss Stone.) [7]

In January 2012, Arjun was chosen as one of MTV's "Brand New" (the Top 20 Unsigned Acts) out of thousands of contestants.[8] Brand New has previously featured artists such as Jessie J and Tinie Tempah.

Arjun won Best Urban Act at the 2012 UK Asian Music Awards.[9] In 2012 Arjun played the role of Luke Lewis in the new online drama "Steffi".[10] He was later chosen by Anirudh Ravichander to perform a song in the movie Vanakkam Chennai and subsequently sang and composed other songs for South Indian movies.[11]

In August 2012, Arjun was selected to sing the official theme song for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 alongside Bathiya and Santhush.[12] He also produced music for the Sri Lankan Premier League, performing at the opening ceremony of the tournament held at Sugathadasa Stadium in Colombo in August 2012.[13] In October 2012, Arjun won ‘Best Urban Act’ (in association with the MOBOs) at the UK Asian Music Awards 2012.[14] He received the award from MOBOs founder Kanya King and Choice FM's DJ Kojo. He also performed as a headline act at the Award Ceremony, held at Wembley Arena.

In early 2013 Arjun did a live acoustic session on BBC Radio 1 and was later profiled by DJ's Fearne Cotton and Nihal on Fearne's Radio 1 show [15]

In July 2014 he performed at Rock Assembly in Wembley Arena, alongside Conor Maynard, Professor Green and Ella Eyre.[16][17] In August 2014 he was a Guest of Honour and sang at the India Day Parade in New York City, the largest annual gathering of Indians in the US.[18]

In September 2014 he performed at Diwali in Time Square, New York, to a crowd of over 200,000.[19] In October 2014 he appeared on the prestigious BBC Programme Blue Peter.[20] The same year, Arjun signed a record deal with T-Series, India's biggest music label.[21] ‘I'll Be Waiting’, his first single with T-Series album charted at #1 on the iTunes India Chart.[22] Arjun again won Eastern Eye Artist of the Year in 2014.[23]

In 2016, Arjun was awarded "Musical Artist of the Year" by Anokhi Media, North America's leading South Asian entertainment & lifestyle media and events company, based in Toronto.[24]

In April 2016 he released the song "Suit" with Guru Randhawa which went on to win ‘Club Song of the Year’ at the PTC Awards in 2017 It was also voted ‘Punjabi Song of the Year’ on BBC Asian Network. It was later featured in the Bollywood movie ‘Hindi Medium’ starring Irrfan Khan (released May 2017).[25]

In March 2018, he featured in Humza Arshad's parody of the viral Nike advertisement, known as "Nothing Beats A Londoner", featuring notable Londoners from underrepresented minorities such as Juggy D, H-Dhami, Tasha Tah, Sevaqk, Bobby Friction, Raxstar, Tez Ilyas, Mumzy Stranger, Steel Banglez, Char Avell, Jay Sean, Corner Shop Show (Islah Abdur-Rahman, Michael Truong, Can Snatchy Kabadayi) and Naughty Boy.[26] Vidya Vox collaborated with Arjun in 2017 for Joshua Tree for the original song, "Diamonds." [27]

In March 2018, Arjun released his first album named Closer To Home with Dcypha Productions under the Island Records label of the - Universal Music Group which was at Trend at iTunes Store. His Album contained other Artists such as - ThePropheC, Manifest. He also did a Collaboration with Raxtar on VIP Records named Lost Our Way on 11 July 2018.

In 2019, Arjun featured in the soundtrack of the Indian film "Gully Boy" on the song "Goriye", and also collaborated with Dutch artist First Man on the song "Soniyere".[28]

In 2019 Arjun created a World Cup Remix of "Dance" with f1rstman, Juggy D, Raxstar, and Mumzy Stranger.

Arjun was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. His mother is Sinhalese and father is Tamil.[29] Arjun's father Indrajit Coomaraswamy is a former governor of Central Bank of Sri Lanka. On 29 September 2018, Arjun released a statement of the loss of his wife Natasha Sandhu. She was his publicist and an integral part of his music career. She died due to a sudden cardiac arrest on 20 September 2018.[30][31] On 3 December 2019, he released the song "One Last Time" dedicated to her. The music video includes some footage on his wife.

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