Kabir Suman

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Kabir Suman

Background information
Origin	Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Genre(s)	Modern Bengali Songs, Rabindra Sangeet
Years active	1992 - present

Kabir Suman (born 1950), is a Kolkata-based modern Bengali singer-songwriter, guitarist, poet, journalist and TV presenter. He changed his name from Suman Chattopadhaya to Kabir Suman (Bangla: কবীর সুমন) when he became a Muslim. He shot to fame in the 1990s with albums such as Tomake Chai (Bangla: তোমাকে চাই I Want You) and Boshe Anko (Bangla: বসে আঁকো Sit-and-Draw Contest).

His contemporary urban, socially conscious songs draw upon both Bengali adhunik (modern) and Western folk and protest music. His work has been a major influence in the development of the Bengali songs, which has influenced bands like Chandrabindoo, and has grown to become a major movement in contemporary Bengali music. Most of his songs are played solo with just a synthesiser or a guitar. Like many Bengali singers, Suman has also recorded albums of Rabindra Sangeet (Songs of Rabindranath Tagore), starting in the late-1990s.

Suman's primary training was in Indian classical music and Rabindra Sangeet, and he picked up Western folk forms while living abroad. From 1975 to 1989 he worked as a broadcast journalist working overseas, living in Germany, where he worked for German International Radio, and in the United States, where he worked for Voice of America's Bengali language service. He finished his second contract with German International Radio in 1989, and returned to Kolkata. He released his first album, Tomake Chai, in 1992. Since then he has released over ten albums, his most recent one being Nandigram in 2007.

[edit] Political views and personal life

Along with his musical contributions, Suman is famous as a journalist and active citizen of country. He was a combat journalist in Nicaragua during Sandinista revolution and wrote a book Mukto Nicaragua on that. In beginning of his musical career, he showed some adherence with the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) and soon got disillusioned by them for there semi-fascist revisionist approach, but however continued to be vocal with his left democratic consciousness in various forums. In fact, today he is one of the important mass organizers of the ongoing movement against neo-liberal attacks in West Bengal. During the Godhra riots, his songs and activities appealed very successfully to mass consciousness against fundamentalism. On the reaction of fascist attacks on people of West Bengal by CPI(M) government, Suman composed several songs which have been released as an album, Nandigram. Suman announced that the royalty for this disc will be used for support of on going save-lands struggle.