Raghav Mathur (born April 2, 1981), known professionally as Raghav, is a Canadian singer. He has released three studio albums: the debut '' Storyteller'' in 2004, ''

Identity Identity may refer to: * Identity document * Identity (philosophy) * Identity (social science) * Identity (mathematics) Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film * ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...

'' in 2009, and '' The Phoenix'' in 2012. His most known commercial success was with " Angel Eyes" which peaked at number 7 in the UK in 2005. His singles "So Confused", "Can't Get Enough" and "It Can't Be Right" also reached the UK top ten in 2004. Raghav continues to have success on Canadian charts in 2010s with subsequent hits like " So Much" with

Kardinal Offishall Jason Drew Harrow (born May 11, 1976), better known by his stage name Kardinal Offishall (), is a Canadian rapper, record producer, DJ, and record executive. Often credited as Canada's " hip hop ambassador", he is regarded as one of the country ...

, "Fire", "Top of the World", "Woohoo" and "Until the Sun Comes Up" (featuring Indian actor

Abhishek Bachchan Abhishek Bachchan (born 5 February 1976) is an Indian actor and film producer known for his work in Hindi films. Part of the Bachchan family, he is the son of actors Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan and the grandson of poet Harivansh Rai Bach ...

and US artist

Nelly Cornell Iral Haynes Jr. (born November 2, 1974), better known by his stage name Nelly, is an American rapper, singer, actor and entrepreneur. He embarked on his music career with the hip hop group St. Lunatics in 1993 and signed to Universal ...

Beginnings

Raghav was born in

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, to

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

parents from India. His parents soon moved to

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

and

Fort McMurray Fort McMurray ( ) is an urban service area in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in Alberta, Canada. It is located in northeast Alberta, in the middle of the Athabasca oil sands, surrounded by boreal forest. It has played a significant ...

, Alberta, where he grew up. Raghav attended

Sir Winston Churchill High School , motto_translation = We learn, not for school, but for life , seal_image = , founded = 1968 , type = Public , streetaddress = 5220 Northland Drive , city = Calgary, Alberta , country ...

, and at the age of 15, music became a heavy feature in his life. Alongside Indian influences at home, he became heavily influenced by R&B. By the time he was 16, he wrote a song that was awarded by the National Songwriters Association of U.S.A. At 17, he moved to Los Angeles, California, United States to develop his vocal skills with

Seth Riggs Seth Riggs (born September 19, 1930) is an American singer, actor, and vocal coach. He has created the vocal technique "Speech Level Singing","Singing seminar scheduled Aug. 28", ''The Herald-Palladium'' (August 20, 1999), p. 6. and has worked wit ...

who has trained, amongst others,

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...

and

Stevie Wonder Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, Pop musi ...

. A year later, he moved to

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

, England where he studied at the

Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) is a performing arts higher education institution in Liverpool, founded by Paul McCartney and Mark Featherstone-Witty and opened in 1996. LIPA offers 11 full-time BA (Hons) degrees in a range ...

. During his time in college, he joined R&B band 11/7 which was nominated for a

Mobo Award The MOBO Awards (Music of Black Origin, also known as the MOBOs) are an annual British music award presentation honouring achievements in " music of black origin", including hip hop, grime, UK Drill, R&B, soul, reggae, jazz, gospel, and ...

for Best Unsigned Artist.

Career

Raghav signed for A&R/V2 Records in 2003 and started working with the DJ and producer, 2Play. This led to the production of his breakthrough single: "So Confused". The song was released in 2004, and reached number 6 in the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

. The next release, "Can't Get Enough", entered the same

chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...

at number 10. In August 2004, another collaboration with 2Play followed, releasing "It Can't Be Right" which reached number 8. Raghav released one more track under his name; "Let's Work It Out" (UK number 15) before his debut album '' Storyteller'' was released in September 2004. His final release off the album was " Angel Eyes", inspired by a melody from "Murder She Wrote", by

Chaka Demus & Pliers Chaka Demus & Pliers are a Jamaican reggae duo made up of deejay Chaka Demus (born John Taylor) and singer Pliers (born Everton Bonner), known for their hits " Tease Me" and " Murder She Wrote". As a duo, they enjoyed more commercial success w ...

, and featured Jucxi and Frankey Maxx. The track reached number 7 in the UK chart. The album also included

for the song "Sooner or Later", where he introduced the song and had his own verse in it.. Raghav's worldwide tour of 2005 saw him perform in venues such as

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

, New York City also Africa, Australia, Canada, and many other countries. Raghav's '' Storyteller'' has sold 1.6 million copies worldwide. Raghav has been featured (along with songwriter

D'Vinci Charles Smith, also known as D'Vinci or Davinci is an American record producer and songwriter. He has written and produced music for such artists as Ginuwine, Christina Milian, Fabulous and Grammy award winning artist Jill Scott. D'Vinci has p ...

) in the 2007 single "Lonely" by rapper Iceberg Slimm. In 2009 Raghav announced that he had signed a recording contract with Universal Music India and subsequently released his second album ''

''. The album was exclusively released in India. The lead single, " My Kinda Girl" was released as a downloadable track from his website raghav.com for overseas fans and featured hip hop musician, Redman. The album also featured a tribute song called "Quincy Jones" which was dedicated to the American record producer

Quincy Jones Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award n ...

. In 2010, Raghav signed his first North American record deal with Canadian label Cordova Bay and released his third album '' The Phoenix''. The first single from the album was the

Labrinth Timothy Lee McKenzie (born 4 January 1989), better known by his stage name Labrinth, is an English singer, rapper, songwriter and record producer. After initially pursuing a career in music production, Simon Cowell signed him to his record labe ...

-produced "So Much", which was commercially released in Canada and features

. The song was nominated for "R&B/Soul Recording of the Year" at the 2011 Canadian

Juno Awards The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of ...

. The song was released in conjunction with a Hindi song entitled "Kya Se Kya Ho Gaya" which featured a sample from the song "Hold Yuh" by

Gyptian Windel Beneto Edwards (born 25 October 1983), better known by his stage name Gyptian (), is a Jamaican reggae singer. He often appears with roots reggae songs within the reggae subgenre dancehall. Early life Born to a Seventh-day Adventist ...

. The second single off the album called "Fire", was commercially released in Canada and peaked at number 38 on the Canadian Billboard Hot 100 and No. 14 on CHR (Mediabase) making it Raghav's most successful single in North America to date. A viral video of the song was released on YouTube on August 23, 2011. He performed his song, "Top of the World" on

Breakfast Television Breakfast television (Europe, Canada, and Australia) or morning show (United States) is a type of news or infotainment television programme that broadcasts live in the morning (typically scheduled between 5:00 and 10:00a.m., or if it is a ...

on March 22, 2012. In early 2012, he collaborated with A. R. Rahman and

Shilpa Rao Shilpa Rao (born Apeksha Rao; 11 April 1984) is an Indian singer born and raised in Jamshedpur. She completed her Post Graduation in Applied Statistics from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, before working as a jingle singer for three years. During ...

for the song "Ishq Shava" from the 2012 Indian film ''

Jab Tak Hai Jaan ''Jab Tak Hai Jaan'' (), also simply known as ''JTHJ'', is a 2012 Cinema of India, Indian Bollywood, Hindi-Hindi, language romantic drama film directed by Yash Chopra and written and produced by his son Aditya Chopra under their banner Yash Ra ...

'' . He collaborated with him again for the song "Mawalli Qawalli" for the film ''Lekar Hum Deewana Dil''. In September 2012, Raghav was signed to Ultra Records in New York City. Ultra released Raghav's single "Fire" in the US and worldwide in January 2013. In July 2013, Raghav and rapper Tom E were featured in the single "One More Round" by

Michael Mind The Michael Mind Project is a German house DJ and music production duo consisting of Jens Kindervater and Frank Bülles. Formed in 2007 under the name Michael Mind, it took its current name in 2009 to avoid confusion and emphasize the fictiona ...

, as well as on "Celebrate" by

Apache Indian Steven Kapur (born 11 May 1967), known by the stage name Apache Indian, is a British singer-songwriter and reggae DJ. He had a series of hits during the 1990s. He is best known in the UK for the song " Boom Shack-A-Lak", which reached the top ...

about a month later. On October 9, 2013, Raghav released a lyric video of his single "Woohoo" on his YouTube page followed by "Take Me Away" in 2014. In 2015, he released " Until the Sun Comes Up" featuring Indian film actor and playback singer

and US artist

. In 2016, he released the single "Do you Like", produced by UK producer Steel Banglez and featuring

Moelogo Mohammed Animashaun popularly known as Moelogo (born 13 April 1990) is a British–Nigerian singer-songwriter, he has songwriting credits for some notable music projects, including Tiwa Savage's '' Celia''. Early life Moelogo was born in Lagos ...

. In September 2018, Raghav announced he had partnered up with

JioSaavn JioSaavn is an Indian online music streaming service and a digital distributor of Hindi, English, Malayalam, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Bhojpuri and other regional Indian music around the world. Since it was founded in 2007 as Saa ...

to release "Maayera" on their Artist Originals platform. It has exceeded 10 million streams globally and spent 15 weeks straight in the top 15 of the streaming charts in India. In the year 2020, Raghav collaborated with Jio Saavn and released a single called sufi. In March 2022, Raghav Mathur released a video song named Teri Baaton from his album named Storyteller and this song features Raghav and some of the best fan creations of the song.

Discography

Albums

Singles

;As featured artist ;Soundtracks of Indian films

Awards

*1997: National Songwriters Association of America Award *2004:

MOBO The MOBO Awards (Music of Black Origin, also known as the MOBOs) are an annual British music award presentation honouring achievements in " music of black origin", including hip hop, grime, UK Drill, R&B, soul, reggae, jazz, gospel, and ...

Award; Best Collaboration *2004: Asian Achievers Award *2005:

Urban Music Awards The Urban Music Awards (UMA) is a hip-hop, R&B, dance, and soul music awards ceremony which was launched by Jordan Kensington in 2003 and is now held in several countries. The US version of the award ceremony, the Urban Music Awards USA, was ...

; Best Chart Act *2005:

UK Asian Music Awards The UK Asian Music Awards, also known by the abbreviation UK AMA, was an awards show that was held annually in the United Kingdom from 2002 to 2012. The awards show has been produced and broadcast by B4U Music since 2008. Awards winners were dec ...

; Best Newcomer *2005: Southern Asian Music Awards; Best Artist *2018: Anokhi Awards: Global Empowerment in Songwriting *2018:

Brit Asia TV Music Awards The Brit Asia TV Music Awards, also known as Brit Asia TV World Music Awards or the abbreviation BAMA, is an awards show that is held annually in the United Kingdom since 2010 (except in 2016), usually in October. The awards show is produced by ...

; Special Recognition ;Nominations *2000:

Best Unsigned Act (11/7) *2008:

Global Indian Music Academy Awards The Global Indian Music Academy Awards (also known as the GiMA Awards) are presented annually by Global Indian Music Academy to honour and recognise Indian music. The nominees are voted by GiMA's jury, who have some of the most respected artis ...

: Best Album *2011: " R&B/Soul Recording of the Year" at the

Juno Awards of 2011 The Juno Awards of 2011 honoured Canadian music industry achievements in the latter part of 2009 and in most of 2010. The awards were presented in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, during the weekend of 26 and 27 March 2011. A week of related events bega ...

for his song " So Much" featuring

*2012: "Best Song" for CHR and Hot/Adult and Contemporary at the Canadian Radio Music Awards for the single "Fire" *2012: "Single of the Year" at the Canadian Indie Awards again for "Fire" *2013: "Recording of the Year" at the Western Canadian Music Awards organized by the Western Canadian Music Alliance for the album ''Phoenix''

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1981 births Living people 21st-century Canadian male singers Alumni of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts Canadian contemporary R&B singers Canadian Hindus Canadian male singers Canadian male singer-songwriters Canadian musicians of Indian descent Canadian people of Indian descent Canadian pop singers Musicians from Calgary Musicians from Toronto