Armaan Malik reveals Bollywood’s open secrets, says singers don’t get paid for singing in movies

Singer Armaan Malik has revealed that he has decided to step away from Bollywood and focus on his own music. In an appearance on Raj Sharma’s podcast, he opened up about the ‘politics’ he has observed in the industry and how singers are not paid for their work.

Armaan said that they are often replaced on projects for vague reasons. He added that after being replaced multiple times, he was scarred and after spending some months in New Zealand and detoxing, he decided to give it all up and work on his own music.

He said, ‘There was a phase where I was replaced in quite a few songs in Bollywood, which scarred me, in a way. I was like, ‘Am I not a good singer?’ And I can’t let that happen to me. I’m very sure of how I am as a singer. But it’s the circumstances… If I’m replaced because I’ve not sung the song well, I’ll accept that. But if I’m replaced because of certain factors or politics, that’s unacceptable. That happened so much to me, and still does, I’ll be frank. I moved on from that…’

He continued, ‘Singers don’t get paid to sing in movie songs. Obviously, you do certain things for the love of music, but there’s also a monetary motivation… At the end of the day, think of it as a job… It’s crazy that as singers, we don’t get to see that. We are so used to this (not being paid) that it is not even a conversation.

They feel if the song is a hit, the singers will earn through live shows. There’s no conversation. It’s just like, ‘Are you free to come to the studio?’ We come, we sing the song, and the next day you find out someone else has sung the song… Sometimes, even composers don’t get paid.

The streaming revenue goes to the labels. This could be a story that we’re uncovering here, but not many people know this, the general public doesn’t know that their favourite artists are not being paid.’

Armaan Malik said that he didn’t want to be asked uncomfortable questions so he avoided accepting this in public.

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