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Social Media Star: Meet Saurav Kishan, the YouTube cover singer of Mohd Rafi songs
Our weekly award to the 23-year-old whose songs have made the internet fall in love with his voice.
On September 12, Saurav Kishan, 23, woke up to a call from a friend who told him that bigwigs like Anand Mahindra, Amitabh Kant and Shankar Mahadevan were tweeting about him.
“When I checked my phone in the morning, my follower count on Insta had shot up nearly two times,” he says.
In a week, his rendition of Teri Aankhon Ke Siva, has over 43,000 likes* and more than 9,000 retweets* on Twitter.
“I was not on Twitter then so I had no clue about it for five-six hours” he says.
Break the Internet
Saurav, a final year MBBS student studying at Xinjiang Medical University in China, has learnt Carnatic and Hindustani classical music. When he returned home due to the pandemic, he started recording and sending his songs to friends who’d share them on WhatsApp groups. “I know the lyrics of nearly 800 Rafi songs,” he says.
Rise of chhota Rafi
This Kerala boy was already a local music sensation in Kozhikode after he earned the tag of Chotta Rafi on a Malayalam singing reality show.
About offers pouring and back-to-back interviews, Saurav says: “I am immensely grateful to Anand sir and to everyone who has tweeted about me.”
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From HT Brunch, September 27, 2020
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