MK Balaji is an Indian singer, songwriter, composer and independent artist from

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

. As a playback singer he has sung more than 200 songs in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

and

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

. His first song a lyricist was for the movie

Sethupathi The Sethupathis are a Tamil clan of the Maravar community native to the Ramanathapuram and Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu, India. They were from the 17th century considered independent kings who ruled the Ramnad kingdom, also known as ''Marava ...

. He has hosted popular TV shows in

Star Vijay Star Vijay is an Indian Tamil language general entertainment pay television channel owned by Disney Star (formerly Star India), a subsidiary of Asianet Star Communications. The channel's headquarters is in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Star Vijay change ...

and

Zee Tamil Zee Tamil is an Indian Tamil language general entertainment pay television channel owned by Zee Entertainment Enterprises. The channel started broadcasting on 2008 and is available internationally. The channel broadcasts from Guindy, Chennai, T ...

. He made a debut as an indie artist with his single Good Naai bad Aadu that takes a fun jab at meat eating animal lovers.

Biography

MK Balaji is the voice behind many South Indian film songs including "Rettai Kathire" from the Tamil movie ''

Maattrraan ''Maattrraan'' () is a 2012 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film co-written and directed by K. V. Anand and produced by Kalpathi S. Aghoram, S. Ganesh and S. Suresh under the banner AGS Entertainment. It stars Suriya in dual roles, along ...

'' directed by

K. V. Anand Karimanal Venkatesan Anand (30 October 1966 30 April 2021) was an Indian cinematographer, film director and photojournalist, worked mainly in the Tamil film industry. After a short period as a journalist, he became a cinematographer in the e ...

starring Surya Sivakumar. He has delivered many successful songs in Tamil and Telugu. He has also collaborated with music directors like D Imman,

Karthik Raja Karthik Raja is an India composer based in Chennai, India. He made his debut as film composer in the Tamil film ''Pandiyan'' (1992) and went on to score music for many critically and commercially acclaimed feature films. Personal life Karthik ...

Sundar C babu Sundar (Devanagari: सुन्दर) is an adjective signifying attractive, beautiful, good, handsome or nice. It has its origin in Sanskrit language. The word is also used as names of people by speakers of languages branching off of Indo-Aryan l ...

Taj Noor Taj Noor is an Indian film score and soundtrack composer, who has predominantly scored music for Tamil films. Career Taj Noor was born in town of Salem, Tamil Nadu to a district collector Usman Ali Khan and his wife Habibonisha and has two elde ...

James Vasanthan James Vasanthan is an Indian Television (Tamil) host, a film music composer, and a filmmaker and a motivational speaker. For more than two decades, he has worked as an anchor in popular Tamil satellite television channels like Sun TV and Vijay ...

Sirpy Narayanan, known by his stage name Sirpy ( ta, சிற்பி; born 25 May 1962), is an Indian film score and soundtrack composer. He has predominantly scored music for Tamil films apart from working in Telugu and Malayalam films. He has als ...

Sabesh–Murali Sabesh–Murali is an Indian music director duo, who have jointly composed for many Tamil films in Chennai, India. Sabesh and Murali are siblings who began their careers working under their brother, the music director Deva, as assistant composer ...

and

Srikanth Deva Srikanth Deva is an Indian music director of Tamil films. He made his debut as music director in the Tamil movie '' Doubles'' in 2000. He is the son of composer Deva, nephew of the famous music director duo Sabesh–Murali and the cousin of actor ...

Live shows and tours

MK Balaji is one very few South Indian singers to perform for the

Indian Premier League The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 franchise cricket league of India. It is annually contested by ten teams based out of seven Indian cities and three Indian states. The leagu ...

. He is a prominent stage performer performing for award functions, television shows, college pro shows and corporate events. His tours overseas include shows in Paris, Japan,

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...

Seychelles Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, V ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

, Singapore and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

to name a few. He has also toured with music directors

Harris Jayaraj Harris Jayaraj (born 8 January 1975) is an Indian composer from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He composes soundtracks predominantly for Tamil films, while also having composed for a few films in Telugu and two films in Hindi. He has been honoured with K ...

and

Vijay Antony Vijay Antony (born 24 July 1975) is an Indian music composer, playback singer, actor, film editor, lyricist, audio engineer, and filmmaker working predominantly in Tamil cinema. He made his debut as music composer in 2005. He is the first India ...

on their music shows.

TV host

As a television host he has hosted television shows like ''Paadum Office'' on

STAR Vijay Star Vijay is an Indian Tamil language general entertainment pay television channel owned by Disney Star (formerly Star India), a subsidiary of Asianet Star Communications. The channel's headquarters is in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Star Vijay change ...

, a Tamil version of the popular ''

Sa Re Ga Ma Pa ''Sa Re Ga Ma Pa'' is an Indian Hindi-language reality singing television show. It started airing on Zee TV in 1995 as ''Sa Re Ga Ma''. It is the oldest running game show in India as well as the oldest show on private television in India. The ...

'' on Zee Tamil and many other shows.

Early music

He started his singing career with reality shows on television. His band V3, of which he was the lead singer, presented a sound track in the ''Oohlalala'' album which consists of original compositions by the winners of the show ''Oohlalala'' aired on the

channel Sun TV. It was judged by the Oscar winner

AR Rahman Ar-Rahman ( ar, الرحمان, ; The Merciful) is the 55th Chapter (''Surah'') of the Qur'an, with 78 verses ('' āyāt''). The title of the surah, Ar-Rahman, appears in verse 1 and means "The Most Beneficent". The divine appellation "ar-R ...

. His band was judged the winning band and he eventually got the breakthrough as a playback singer.

Discography

Below is the partial discography of the songs sung by MK Balaji. ;Film songs ;Single ;As lyricist ;As TV Host

References

*
MK Balaji's official YouTube channel

MK Balaji back in business – Times of India

Dr.PB Srinivas on MK Balaji

Silence is a source of power – MK Balaji

MK Balaji – on twitter

MK Balaji – on Facebook

MK Balaji – on Instagram
{{DEFAULTSORT:Balaji, MK Living people Indian male playback singers Tamil playback singers Singers from Chennai Tamil singers Year of birth missing (living people)