3 minutes of readingNew DelhiFebruary 4, 2026 21:45 IST
With singer Arijit Singh get out of the world of playback singing, The debate over how singers get their due has never been stronger. People wonder about an industry that can’t seem to retain its biggest stars and worry about the status of artists who are many rungs below them in terms of popularity and agency. Recently, singer Abhijeet Sawant spoke about the same phenomenon and whether playback singers are paid properly or not.
While appearing on Pentarise Studios’ YouTube channel, the host bluntly asked Abhijeet about the payment structure of film music. Hesitant at first, Abhijeet said, “People don’t want singers to be bigger than the film itself. That’s why they are paid a certain amount. Musicians still don’t get royalties for music in films. So Biddu, who worked in Lafzon Mein, also did a couple of songs in the West, and he gets so many royalty payments for those two songs that he can survive his entire life on that money. We don’t even get enough money to support our livelihood..”
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He continued and said, “They have created a system like that. Singers are hungry for opportunities and they know that ‘if this song is released with my voice, with some big star lip-syncing, then I can use this song for my entire life.'” The singers themselves don’t want money, because they just want to sing the song or work with a certain producer. We accept whatever amount we get, because if we don’t do it, someone else will. They exploit us a lot.”
While not everyone can boast of having such a big payday thanks to a few songs, Abhijeet is right about Biddu. The British-English composer and singer-songwriter produced Carl Douglas’ international hit Kung Fu Fighting and the famous Pakistani album Disco Deewane for Nazia and Zoheb. During a 2011 interview with Hindustan Times, the publication revealed that the artist still receives royalties worth between £60,000 and £70,000 a month, which, based on the current market, would be worth between Rs 74 and Rs 84 lakh.