Krishna Kumar Kunnath, popularly known as KK, whose mellifluous voice gave India some of Bollywood’s biggest hit songs of the 1990s and 2000s, died of cardiac arrest after successfully performing in an auditorium packed with thousands of his devoted fans in Kolkata recently. He was just 53. Born in Delhi in 1968, KK initially used to sing for a rock band during his college days and had a brief stint as a marketing executive after his graduation. But later KK decided to leave Delhi and come to Mumbai to follow his passion for music. With no mentor in the competitive recording industry, he initially struggled to make a name for himself, resorting to singing at hotels to make ends meet. He broke into Bollywood in 1996 with the movie “Maachis” (“Matchstick”), about the rise of the Sikh insurgency in Punjab. As a playback singer, KK became the voice of Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Ranbir Kapoor and Salman Khan. He recorded about 3,500 jingles in 11 languages, mostly in Hindi, and released popular albums like “Pal” (“Moment”) in 1999 and “Humsafar” (“Co-Traveler”) in 2008. But it was his work in the Hindi music industry that made him the voice of a generation. A great world-class singer like KK will be definitely missed by all his devoted fans like us with his passing over.
