Ash King

About Ash King

Ash King hails from a family of musicians who have shaped his relationship with music. His grandfather was a the first Indian classical music teacher at Nobel prize for literature winner 'Rabindranath Tagore's home and school Shantinikaitan, and also a prominant freedom fighter for India. King spent his childhood surrounded by celebrated musical artistes with whom his father worked closely with.

Influenced early on by joining a Gospel choir and listening to soul artistes such as Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Al Green and Luther Vandross, King's style and flavour deliver a sound that is easy on the ear and alluring even for those who aren't drawn by his specialised genre. However, you would be mistaken to think King's talents lie in just the one genre.

Ash King's musical talents gave him his first Bollywood break in 2009 in the award-winning soundtrack of Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Delhi 6. Personally discovered by Oscar-winner and maestro AR Rahman. Ash King recorded 'Dil Gira Dafatan' in Rahman's personal home studio (Panchathan) and became the first singer to promote the intermingling of Gospel and RnB into Indian cinema. The song marked King's Hindi debut and this freshness gave a unique resonance.

In the same year King was also featured on the official single 'Bad Romance' of Lady Gaga's album Just Dance. The track was also remixed and featured in the official Asian release. Lady Gaga's single wasn't the singer's first taste of exposure to the Asian masses. King sang, composed and co-wrote 'Love is Blind' which proved to be an overnight hit in the Middle East as well as getting millions of hits on Youtube. King also wrote and featured his vocals to on 'Look For Me' with hugely popular female rapper Hard Kaur.

In 2010, King featured on Anil and Rhea Kapoor's production Aisha which starred Sonam Kapoor and Abhay Deol. He worked with well-known music composer Amit Trivedi to create a sound which was contemporary and clean with a fusion feel. In 2011, King's singing career is going from strength to strength what with Pritam somewhat taking him under his wing. King lent his vocals to Ramesh Sippy's Dum Maaro Dum with the song 'Te Amo'. The song, with female vocals from sensuous-sounding Sunidhi Chauhan, was picturised on Bipasha Basu and Bollywood newcomer Rana Daggubati. Te Amo went on to hold the number 1 position in chart-shows across various Asian Radio stations in the UK for six weeks. The track is still a steady part of various charts around the world nearly 8 months after the movie released.

2011 also saw King sing for Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor starrer Bodyguard. The movie became one of Khan's careers biggest successes at the box office. Khan visited London for a press conference following Bodyguard's worldwide achievement and King was asked to perform 'I Love You' in front of him and the rest of the British Asian press. King also performed the song in front of cinema audiences at a special screening of Bodyguard in London before the film's official release.

2012 started with a bang when he performed to thousands across India including the popular song 'Aunty Ji' for Imran Khan and Kareena Kapoor in the film 'Ek Main Aur Ek Tu'. This was a totally ingenious move made by the brilliant Amit Trivedi to capture a different side to Ash's versatility and eccentric personality in a song. This all led to Ash doing his own full episode of MTV U...

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