Singers who made headlines in 2017

The playback singers of Bollywood generally stay in the shadows and don’t come in the limelight as much as the actors. However, they do make the news from time to time due to their professional endeavours or personal incidents. This year has been an exception in that regard because a lot of singers have made headlines bigtime, but most of them have not been for the right reasons. Well, good or bad, they certainly got some limelight over the past few months. So here is a look at a few such artists who became newsworthy in 2017.

Sonu Nigam has had his fair share of controversies in his life. This year too he made news for some rather controversial tweets. In a series of tweets, Sonu had complained about the noise of loudspeakers which mosques used for Azaan (morning prayers). He also criticized the use of loudspeakers in all religious places and called it “forced religiousness”. Eventually, his statements stirred up the hornet’s nest and many Islamic groups protested vehemently against his quote. Many in B-town too stood divided on the issue and the singer ultimately ended up shaving his head after a fatwa was issued against him. However, after all the ruckus died down, the famous singer concluded by saying that he stood by his statements.

Armaan Malik is usually in the news for his immaculate voice and his amazing live performances. However, this year he made headlines thanks to a little controversy that erupted right before Justin Bieber’s India tour. When news broke out of Sonakshi Sinha tentatively performing at the concert, Armaan had questioned the credibility of actors to sing and had asked Sonakshi and other actors to focus on their field. This, of course, did not go down well with Sonakshi who retaliated to Armaan and asked him why he wanted her to sing in a film if he thought actors shouldn’t be singers. While the discussion between Armaan and Sonakshi did not become very heated, it acted as a catalyst for an ugly Twitter war with another singer.

While the singers versus actors debate was started by Armaan and Sonkashi, it was singer Sona Mohapatra who took it to another level. Coming to her fellow colleague’s rescue, she tweeted a series of shocking statements against Sonakshi Sinha. She started out by saying that the actress demeaned Armaan by saying that he ran after her to collaborate. Sona continued her volley of accusations as she added that Sonakshi always talked down to musicians and singers and that one “face-saving” post doesn’t change the facts. Eventually, Sonakshi blocked Sona on Twitter and the singer even took a screenshot of it. One can definitely say things got a little out of hand here.

Adnan Sami is perhaps the only singer who came in the news for a happy reason. The singer, who became an Indian citizen, became a proud father to a baby girl named Medina. The bundle of joy was born on May 10th and an overjoyed Adnan took to Twitter immediately to share an emotional message as he said; “Roya & I have been blessed with an angelic baby girl. We've named her Medina Sami Khan. Prayed for a daughter. Over Joyed! #daddyslittlegirl.” The singer had also shared a few pictures of Medina on his social media page and proved that he is a doting father. It seems that the arrival of the daughter has also brought good luck as Adnan is now foraying into acting with the film ‘Afghan’.

Singer Abhijeet is no stranger to controversies and has often landed in hot waters for his comments on social media. This year was no different for him as he spewed venom against JNU activist Shehla Rashid. He had tweeted against Rashid and called her obscene things. Soon after this, his Twitter account was removed and when he tried he creating another account, he was again removed from the microblogging platform. Last year too he had lashed out against filmmaker Karan Johar for the movie ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ and it looks like it will not be the last time that Abhijeet will make the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

AR Rahman is always known for delivering beautiful music for Bollywood as well as Tamil films. The Oscar-winning music composer, however, faced flak after a concert in London. While doing a tour in London, Rahman sang a lot of songs in Tamil, but the crowd was really irked that he didn’t perform enough Hindi songs and many eventually ended up demanding a refund. In the end, it blew up into a typical north vs south debate on social media.

This singer was in news very recently after an altercation with some airline staff. Apparently, Aditya was heading back from Jaipur after attending Dusshera celebrations when there was a problem with his luggage. The airline staff tried to reason with the enraged singer but he ended up threatening them on camera. He even went as far to say, “I will strip you naked, my name is Aditya Narayan!” Of course, after the video surfaced online, the singer was lambasted for his comments and it sparked a debate on VIP culture that is still prevalent in India.