Chaleya Singer Shilpa Rao Opens Up About Her Struggles And Setbacks

One singer who has been ruling our playlists is Shilpa Rao, the voice behind hit songs like Besharam Rang and Kalank, among many others. Her exceptional vocal talent has firmly established her as one of the finest playback singers in the industry.

In a recent interview with Mid-Day, Shilpa reflected on her challenging journey in the music industry and pointed out how success in playback singing is never permanent.

Shilpa Rao Opens About Her Professional Journey

Shilpa Rao spoke about how challenging it was for newcomers to break into the music world. She recalled that her first playback opportunity came when Mithoon offered her the song Tose Naina Lage from the film Anwar. She described it as an ‘unusual’ song to begin her career with.

While Shilpa

has lent her voice to many iconic songs, including Ghungroo and Malang, she acknowledged that success in playback singing is not always permanent. She pointed out the unpredictability by stating that her 8 songs didn’t work last year, which is why persistence and consistency, she believes, are more important than momentary applause.

She remembered the legends of the industry, including Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar, and pointed out that through hard work and dedication, their presence in the industry remained strong, not necessarily because they were successful all the time, but because they stayed committed to their craft.

Shilpa On Working With Amitabh Bhattacharya, Pritam, Shankar Mahadevan And AR Rahman

She highlighted two of her songwriting partners, Amitabh Bhattacharya and Pritam, as people who are receptive to fresh ideas. She also mentioned that AR Rahman values collaborating with singers who are eager to step outside their comfort zones and experiment. Shilpa also credited Shankar Mahadevan for introducing her to the commercial music world, giving her an early opportunity to showcase her talent through the creation of advertising jingles.

Shilpa also shared that she has faced many failures in her career. She recalled how she was not able to sing Kaisi Paheli Zindagani for the film, Parineeta during the starting of her career. “Last year, my eight songs didn’t just work out and it happens to the best of us,” stated Shilpa.

‘Stop Looking For Motivation’: Shilpa

The talented singer reflected that life is full of defining moments and said that instead of constantly chasing motivation, discipline and consistency should become second nature. According to her, regularly showing up at the studio and putting in the work is what truly matters, which is why persistence plays such a crucial role when talking about legends. She added that talent alone is never enough, and even icons like Michael Jackson, Sting and Freddie Mercury thrived because of relentless hard work.