78 Facts About Kabir Suman

Kabir Suman shot to fame in the 1990s with Bengali albums such as Tomake Chai and Boshe Anko.

Kabir Suman has won a National Film Award for Best Music Direction for his work in Jaatishwar.

Kabir Suman was born in a Bengali Hindu Brahmin family on 16 March 1949 to Sudhindranath and Uma Chattopadhyay at Cuttack, Odisha.

Kabir Suman started his training in classical music at a very young age, under the tutelage of his father.

Kabir Suman graduated with an honours in English Literature from Jadavpur University and did a diploma in the French language and the German language.

Kabir Suman shifted to France temporarily to teach the basics of Indian Classical Music in 1973.

In May 1979, Kabir Suman returned to Kolkata and he started to work as a teacher of German at Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Kolkata, and the Max Mueller Bhavan.

Kabir Suman started working in the Bengali daily Aajkal as a part-timer, and contributed to the Desh until 1980.

Kabir Suman wrote for Desh magazine under the pseudonym Manab Mitra during this time and started writing in the 'Frontier' magazine.

Kabir Suman bought many instruments, applicable for a complete recording studio, which were sent to Kolkata by ship.

Kabir Suman himself had written, composed, sung and played electronic keyboard on the recording.

The entire recording was done by his four track tape recorder, where live vocals and live instruments were recorded in two tracks by all vocalists, and Kabir Suman himself added more electronic sounds on the rest of the two tracks by playing synthesizer.

Kabir Suman recorded some information and song about Sandinista Revolution at that time.

Kabir Suman was not sure about the future of his created songs, and not interested to involve in a general job.

Kabir Suman thought if he could go to a foreign country as an employee, he could buy many electronic music instruments.

Kabir Suman then started song creation on guitar, like "Hal Chherho Na Bandhu", "Gan-ola", etc.

Kabir Suman bought many instruments like before, this time both keyboard and guitar.

Kabir Suman decided to be a solo professional singer-songwriter and musician, and thought to work in some advertisement business, but nothing materialized.

Kabir Suman felt nervous because he was performing on stage after 17 years, and he was completely unknown, with his style.

Kabir Suman felt very happy to realize that his song got the favour of the general public, and became optimistic.

Kabir Suman started to practise his voice with the help of electronic tanpura, continued keyboard and guitar playing, and creating songs with some contemporary incidents.

Kabir Suman performed first time as a professional singer in December 1990.

Kabir Suman got appreciation from Dr Barin Roy, Gour Kishor Ghosh, Ashis Chattopadhay etc.

Kabir Suman's songs have not impressed the rural people, but urban and suburban people appreciated them very much.

Kabir Suman sang at some political meetings of the Communist Party of India.

Kabir Suman performed his first solo live performance on 5 May 1991 at Shishir Mancha.

Kabir Suman performed in some live programs with the help of his friends.

All those were very unsure, and Kabir Suman was not optimistic at that time about his eligibility.

Many people of advertisement business got him to do jingles or theme songs including "Lexpo 1991", but some of them either gave him not a single penny, others gave him very little money, despite the fact that Kabir Suman made all this work completely alone with writing, composing, singing, playing instruments, recording, and mixing.

Kabir Suman went to Doordarshan Kendra Kolkata for some work, but he was refused.

Kabir Suman went to Akashbani Bhawan Kolkata, and applied with the help of his friend and famous newsreader Tarun Chakrabarty.

Kabir Suman himself played guitar, Pratap Roy played synthesizer, and Samir Khasnabis played bass guitar.

Ravi Kichlu, the head of the product development division of that company welcomed Kabir Suman, and showed interest to record his songs.

Kabir Suman, recorded a number of albums between 1992 and 1999 under the name Suman Chattopadhyay or Suman Chatterjee.

Kabir Suman returned to the recording industry again in 2001, and this time as Kabir Suman.

Kabir Suman's work has been a major influence in the development of the Bengali songs.

Kabir Suman released his first solo album, Tomake Chai, on 23 April 1992, which was immensely successful as it redefined Bengali songs.

Later Kabir Suman stopped making songs for general audience and focused on more political issues.

Kabir Suman broke his own record, and the record of Bengali music history because it was the first of such basic Bengali song album which contains such number of songs.

Many hardcore Kabir Suman fans criticized and disliked this music, which was not alike with his previous albums.

However, in 1997, Kabir Suman returned again to his own instrumental music by his 7th album 'Jaatishwar'.

Kabir Suman used both instruments very complexly, and created a complex orchestration alone.

Kabir Suman played acoustic guitar and harmonic in this album.

Kabir Suman used both instruments very complexly, and created an ethereal orchestration alone.

Kabir Suman sang 3 songs collaboratively with those child singers, and he says that it was his best artistic work till now.

Amit Bandopadhyay arranged the instrumental music with many session musicians for all songs but one, where Kabir Suman played his guitar and harmonica only.

In 1997, Kabir Suman became music director again in a Bengali film Sedin Chaitramas, which contained 7 songs.

Unlike Mahasangram, Kabir Suman played all instruments like electronic keyboard, guitar and harmonica and himself was an arranger like his basic albums.

Kabir Suman played all instruments like electronic keyboard, guitar and harmonica and himself was an arranger like his basic albums.

Kabir Suman started his music career with Rabindra Nath Tagore's song in 1972, but it was almost unsuccessful.

Kabir Suman recorded Tagore's song again 1994, after a long gap, this time he was already a popular singer.

Kabir Suman had already changed his name from Suman Chattopadhyay to Kabir Suman, but the recording company still used his old name primarily, and his new name within brackets.

Kabir Suman's songs were accompanied by guitar and harmonica, where Anjan's songs were accompanied by lead guitar, bass guitar and harmonica by other musicians.

Kabir Suman returned to his solo Bengali album in 2005 after a three-year long gap.

At that time, Kabir Suman was a reporter of Tara TV.

Kabir Suman went more than one time to those places, and arose high protest by both as reporter and singer-songwriter-musician.

Kabir Suman's protest continued to the next year, when he published his 15th album and his 3rd concept album 'Rijwanur Britto` in 2008.

Kabir Suman's protest-mindness helped Trinamool Congress to stand him as an MP in then coming Lok sabha election.

Kabir Suman sang many such songs in his election campaign.

Kabir Suman said a little speech in the middle of the title song.

In 2009, Kabir Suman returned again to Bengali film industry as a music director after a long gap.

Kabir Suman got Radio Mirchi Award for best lyricist, best compact disc, and best seller compact disc for this film.

Kabir Suman recorded Tagore's Song again in 2002, after a long gap.

Kabir Suman recorded his next Tagore Song album 'Ganer Resh' in 2016, which was completely without any instruments.

Since 2011, Kabir Suman started posting his new songs on his website.

Kabir Suman is continuing live performance on various stages in Kolkata and various towns in West Bengal as of 2017.

Kabir Suman sometimes plays melodica and harmonica at his concerts.

Kabir Suman was a journalist in Nicaragua during the Sandinista revolution and wrote Mukto Nicaragua on his experiences.

Kabir Suman is noted for his strong declamations against political opponents in public.

Since 2006, when Kabir Suman was involved in the land struggle in Nandigram, he started aligning himself to Trinamool Congress.

In November 2009, Kabir Suman had a dispute with the TMC.

Kabir Suman complained that the local leaders of the party were not allowing him to work, and his views were not taken seriously in the party.

Kabir Suman has been vocal in his support for the movement of tribals in Lalgarh, and has composed an album called Chhatradharer Gaan in support of the mass movement, going against the wishes of the party.

Kabir Suman converted to Islam in 1999 to mark his protest against the killing of Christian missionary Graham Staines by a former member of Bajrang Dal.

Kabir Suman reportedly accused Suman of domestic violence and filed a criminal complaint against Suman.

Kabir Suman supported a ban by the Government of West Bengal on the book Dwikhandito, written by the Bangladeshi writer and activist Taslima Nasrin, for allegedly blaspheming the Prophet Mohammed.

In January 2022, Kabir Suman attacked in abusive language over the phone in a conversation with journalist Bittu Raychaudhuri from Republic TV, which was illegally recorded by the media house, without informing Kabir Suman.

Kabir Suman's conduct was widely criticised and led to a criminal complaint being filed against him for attacking Hindu sentiments and misogynistic vulgar statements about women in West Bengal.