- Sonu Nigam is touring with The Revolution – Sonu Nigam Live concert series
- He performed Aaj Ki Raat in male and female voices at a New York concert
- The song Aaj Ki Raat was composed by Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy and penned by Javed Akhtar
Sonu Nigam is currently on his The Revolution – Sonu Nigam Live concert tour. He recently performed at a massive sold-out concert at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in New York on September 13.
A clip from the concert shows Sonu Nigam singing the song Aaj Ki Raat from the 2006 film Don: The Chase Begins Again in both male and female voices. The song was originally sung by Sonu Nigam, Alisha Chinai and Mahalakshmi Iyer.
As soon as the video went viral, fans had a blast in the comments section.
A fan wrote, "Even his female voice is better than Neha Kakkar."
Another fan wrote, "Once in a generation talent."
Another fan wrote, "Versatility beyond words."
For the unversed, Aaj Ki Raat was penned by Javed Akhtar, while the composition was done by the trio Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy — Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa. The film Don starred Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Arjun Rampal, Isha Koppikar and Boman Irani.
During an appearance on the Game Changers podcast Sonu Nigam shared his ideas about the use of auto-tune, “The era of auto-tune has certainly brought a lot of changes. People say a lot of bad things about it, but I say, "Jo bhi hua hai aacha hua hai (Whatever has happened is for the good)."
He continued, “In earlier days, you had to sing without auto-tune, and we are lucky to Riyaaz (practice) without it, and now we don't need it. But still, I would say I use auto-tune on certain songs of mine. Everything now is so 440; previously, everything was live. We had live sarangi and live strings, so somewhere our pitch didn't have to be perfect. Everything now is digitized; everything is going in a straight line, and your voice will sound off if it's raw. Previously, with live music, we used to adjust according to the live music, but now your song will stand out."
Admitting that he used auto-tune for his songs, Sonu added that as singers it is their responsibility not to use resources to fix the voices of those who cannot sing. “You give your 99% and bring it to 100% with auto-tune. Many actors use auto-tune for their songs, and it's absolutely fine if they use it to enjoy their dreams. But they cannot replace singers,” he said.
Sonu Nigam has recently lent his voice to the song Tabassum in Batwara 1947. Composed by A.R. Rahman with lyrics written by Javed Akhtar, the song has been picturized on Ali Fazal, Isha Sandhir, Karan Deol, and Kanikka Kapur.