Roop Kumar Rathod

Biography

Roopkumar Rathod is an Indian playback singer, pop singer, and music composer. He has performed a number of songs in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Assamese, Odia, Nepali, Bhojpuri and Kannada films.

Personal life

Rathod is the third and the youngest son of the late Pandit Chaturbhuj Rathod, a proponent of the oldest major vocal style associated with Hindustani classical music, Dhrupad. He belonged to the "Aditya Gharana of Jamnagar." He has two brothers, the late music composer Shravan Rathod, who was a part of the Nadeem-Shravan duo, and singer Vinod Rathod. Roopkumar is married to Sunali Rathod, formerly the first wife of bhajan singer, Anup Jalota. Together, they have a daughter named Reewa Rathod.
Roopkumar was introduced to music during his early years. He began playing the tabla and he became sought after by many ghazal singers in the 1980s. He first began playback singing in 1992 with the film Angaar.

Career

Rathod has appeared as a vocalist on albums from 1999. He has sung songs in Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Nepali and Bhojpuri films.
The song "Sandese Aate Hai", from the movie Border, became one of the major breakthroughs of Rathod's career. He received his only Filmfare Award nomination to date at the 43rd Filmfare Awards. In addition, he sang the song "Tujh Mein Rab Dikhta Hai" for the movie Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and 'Maula Mere Maula' for the movie Anwar.
Apart from playback singing for films, Roopkumar has long played live concerts across the world with his wife Sunali, performing a mix of ghazal, Sufi, light classical music, and film songs.
Roopkumar has also performed with the artists Trilok Gurtu, Ranjit Barot and Abhijit Pohankar in fusion concerts. He and Gurtu released the fusion album Beat of Love in December 2001 and the jazz album Broken Rhythms, in October 2004.
In August 2005, the comedy serial Sarabhai vs. Sarabhai featured Roopkumar and Sunali Rathod in one of their episodes that showcased a friendly musical contest.
Roopkumar, along with wife Sonali, won the title of 'Ustaad Jodi' on 'Mission Ustaad', a musical television reality show aired in February 2008, that aimed to create awareness about social causes. Donations were received by the United Nations Charities.
In 2011 he released a Sufi album along with his wife Sunali Rathod called "Kalma".