The music of Kerala has a long and rich history. It is not the same as Malayalam poetry, although most of it is poetry driven. Kerala has a rich tradition in Carnatic music. Songs formed a major part of early Malayalam literature, which traces its origin to the 9th century CE. The significance of music in the culture of Kerala can be established just by the fact that in Malayalam language, musical poetry was developed long before prose. With the development of music in the region, different branches were formed out of it. The most basic branches are classical music which is primarily Carnatic music oriented, and popular music which includes film songs and album songs.
Hariharan is an Indian playback, bhajan and ghazal singer from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, who predominantly sang in Tamil and Hindi languages. Also he sang almost 15000 notable songs in 10 regional languages some of them being Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi and Bhojpuri films. He is an established Ghazal singer and one of the pioneers of Indian fusion music. In 2004, he was honoured with the Padma Shri by the Government of India and is a two-time National Award winner.
Thoguluva Meenatchi Iyengar Soundararajan, popularly known as TMS, was an Indian Carnatic musician and a playback singer in Tamil cinema for over six and a half decades. He lent his voice to actors and thespians in the Tamil film industry such as M. G. Ramachandran, Sivaji Ganesan, N. T. Rama Rao, Gemini Ganesan, S. S. Rajendran, Jaishankar, Ravichandran, A. V. M. Rajan, R. Muthuraman, Nagesh, Sivakumar, Kantha Rao, Rajkumar, Prem Nazir and A. Nageswara Rao. He also gave his voice to many new generation actors like Kamal Haasan, Rajinikanth, Vijayakanth, Satyaraj, Rajesh, Prabhu, and Vijaya Kumar, in addition to other known and unknown heroes and supporting actors like M.R. Radha, K R Ramaswami, T. Rajendar, V.K. Ramaswami, Thengai Sreenivasan, M.N. Nambiar, Thangavelu, Y.G. Mahendran, R.S. Manohar, S.V. Ashokan, Ranjan, Narasimha Bharathi, Sahasra Namam, T S Balayya, Jagayya, Nagayya, Thyagarajan, Sreenath, Shankar etc. He sang over 10,138 songs from 3,162 films, including devotional, semi-classical, Carnatic, classical and light music songs. He gave classical concerts starting in 1943.
Alphons Joseph is a music director and playback singer in the Malayalam film industry who got a break as a film music composer after composing for the film Vellithira. Alphons is also noted for singing the famous song "Aaromale" from the film Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa, which was composed by A. R. Rahman.
Balabhaskar Chandran was an Indian musician, violinist, composer and record producer. He is best known for promoting fusion music in South India. Hailing from a musically affluent family, he was introduced to the world of instrumental music at the age of three by his uncle B. Sasikumar, a laureate in Carnatic music. Balabhaskar began his professional career at the age of 12. He made his debut as a music director by composing the soundtrack for the Malayalam film Mangalya Pallakku (1998), and was the youngest music composer to have worked in the industry at the age of 17. He had won the Bismillah Khan Yuva Sangeetkaar Puraskaar in 2008 by Kendra Sangeet Natak Academy for Instrumental Music (Violin).
Ravisankar is an Indian playback singer. He has recorded about 100 songs in the Malayalam language.
"Bombay" Jayashri Ramnath is an Indian musician. She has sung in multiple languages including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi movies. Born into a family of musicians, Jayashri represents the fourth generation of music practitioners in her family. Trained by Lalgudi Jayaraman and T R Balamani, she was awarded India's fourth highest civilian award the Padma Shri in 2021. She has become one of the most sought after Carnatic musicians today.
Anuradha Sriram is an Indian carnatic and playback singer who hails from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. She has sung more than 4,000 songs in Tamil, Telugu, Sinhala, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali and Hindi films.
Venkateswaran Dakshinamoorthy was a veteran carnatic musician and composer and music director of Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi films, predominantly in Malayalam films. He has set scores for the songs in over 125 films. He composed as many as 1400 songs over a period of 63 years. Fondly known as Swami, he was instrumental in pioneering classical music-based film songs. Revered as one of the forefathers of the Malayalam music industry, he has mentored many of the renowned contemporary singers and composers including P Leela, K.J Yesudas. In 1998, he was honoured with the J. C. Daniel Award, Kerala government's highest honour for contributions to Malayalam cinema.
Shweta Mohan is an Indian playback singer. She has received four Filmfare Awards South for Best Female Playback Singer, one Kerala State Film Award and one Tamil Nadu State Film Award. She has recorded more than 700 songs for film music and albums in all the four south Indian languages namely Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada in addition to the Hindi films and has established herself as a leading playback singer of South Indian cinema.
Porayathu Leela was an Indian playback singer, Carnatic vocalist and a music director. She has recorded more than 5,000 songs in various Indian languages including Malayalam,Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Sanskrit,Odiya,Gujarati, Marati etc. and as well as foreign language Sinhale. She is also known for her extensive history of collaboration in the songs with Music Composers V Dakshinamoorthy., MS Baburaj, G Devarajan, Ghantasala, MS Viswanathan, KRaghavan, Br Lakshmanan, LPR Varma, BA Chithambaranath, AT Ummer, MK Arjun,Johnson, Ouseppachan, Ilaiyaraja, and with the playback singers KJ Yesudas and Ghantalasa over the years. She is also known mostly for her sweet and melodious voice for which she is fondly called as Ganamani.She was awarded Padma Bhushan in 2006.
Salt N' Pepper is a 2011 Indian Malayalam-language romantic comedy film directed by Aashiq Abu and produced for Lucsam Creations. The film stars Lal, Asif Ali, Shweta Menon, and Mythili in the lead roles, while Baburaj and Vijayaraghavan play supporting roles.
Kanhangad Ramachandran is an Indian Singer and Music Director from Kannur, Kerala. He was born to Shri. C. K Panicker bhagavathar, an exponent of Classical Music in the Carnatic tradition of South India, and Smt. Naniyamma.
Haricharan Seshadri, known and credited as Haricharan, is an Indian Carnatic vocalist, playback singer, and musician who predominantly works in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu And Kannada. He sung 2000 songs in films, albums etc.He recorded his first Tamil film song for the film Kaadhal, in Joshua Sridhar's music when he was 17, and went on to record three songs in his debut movie. His song "Unakkena Iruppen" was nominated for the National Film Awards in 2005 which became widely popular. However he became popular only after his rendition to the song, "Thuli Thuli", composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja for the movie Paiyaa (2010).
Sithara Krishnakumar is an Indian playback singer, composer, dancer and an occasional actor. She predominantly works in Malayalam cinema in addition to Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films. Sithara is trained in Hindustani and Carnatic classical music traditions and is also a recognised ghazal singer. She is the recipient of several awards, including two Kerala State Film Award for Best Singer.
Parthasarathy Nemani, popularly known as Parthu, is an Indian Telugu playback singer in Tollywood with rich classical music background. Parthu has rendered more than 100 film songs and sung more than 2000 private songs in Telugu, Tamil, Hindi and Kannada. Parthu is one of the very few Telugu playback singers who has performed internationally.
Siddharth Menon is an Indian playback singer, film actor, Co-founder and vocalist of Thaikkudam Bridge music band. He has rendered some film songs but is most popular for his band Thaikkudam Bridge. His rendition of "Mandaracheppundo" from the film Dasharatham for a musical show Music Mojo in the Malayalam channel Kappa TV topped the music charts.
Arjun Menon is an Indian playback singer and songwriter based in New York City and London. He has sung for top music directors including A.R. Rahman, Harris Jayaraj, G.V Prakash etc. Arjun started his music career performing Carnatic music as a solo artiste and subsequently performed several shows across the country collaborating with top musicians. He sang the re-recording song "Kulu Kulu Venpani Pola" for the movie Engeyum Kadhal which was composed and penned by Harris Jayaraj. His playblack debut and big break came with the song "Latcham Calorie" from the movie Yaan in 2014.
Delsy Ninan is an Indian playback singer hailing from Ranni situated in Pathanamthitta district of Kerala. She is also a well known VJ and has presented shows in leading Malayalam channels.
Niranj Suresh is an Indian musician, playback singer, director and actor. Niranj is the lead vocalist of the Indian rock band from Kochi Motherjane. He is also the lead vocalist and songwriter of a progressive rock band called Blank planet. He also started his own solo venture "Nrj Project" in 2017.
