Sonu Niigaam and Michael Jackson - An Indian superstar pays tribute to his idol

What do have an international mega-star and Indian musician and superstar to do with each other?

Now, of course, as for many musicians and fans, Michael Jackson is an undisputed idol, one of the few truly outstanding individuals who have managed to survive despite all odds in a challenging music biz. For Sonu Niigaam Michael Jackson was and still is a role model who has influenced his early works.

Unfortunately, Michael Jackson died just 3 weeks before his much-announced and already mostly sold-out comeback tour, "This Is It," which should have had its premiere in London.

Jackson lived and died in Los Angeles – and at this time Sonu Niigaam was also there. The Indian superstar has chosen Los Angeles as a second homeland in addition to Mumbai and from there he’d started off to an extended concert tour "Explosion 2009 - Sonu Niigaam, Sunidhi Chauhan and Hard Kaur in Concert" across the United States.

When news of the death of Michael Jackson arrived the U.S. media Niigaam sent out an SMS to his friends, "Michael Jackson Becomes One With the Universe". He joined as well with countless fans of MJ at Jackson's house, to light candles and pray for his idol.

"Billie Jean" in honor of MJ
But this was not enough - in honor of Michael Jackson Sonu Niigaam included a special presentation in his tour concerts. To the surprise of his mostly Indian fans in the U.S., the musicians presented on stage a close-to-perfect performance of Michael Jackson's superhit "Billie Jean" including the famous "Moon Walks". The response of his fans was overwhelming.

However, a very special honor got Sonu Niigaam himself on his final concert on 16 August in Los Angeles. Among the guests and concert-goers were celebrities from the music, fashion and show business in Hollywood and - Jermaine Jackson - Michael Jackson's brother - who is currently busy with the final preparations for the memorial concert for Michael Jackson in Vienna on September 26, 2009th (www.tribute2009.com). Like all other concert-goers Jermaine Jackson was overwhelmed by Sonu Niigaam "Billie Jean" performance and he joined enthusiastically into standing ovation.

"MJ - This One Is for You"
The next coup by Sonu Niigaam, was a specially created song to commemorate Michael Jackson, which was released on Jackson’s birthday on 29 August. It may be one among many, because the idea has been picked up by hundreds or even thousands of musicians,
but the very special thing about this song was the way it was created. So far, unique and almost unbelievable, it has been initiated by fans of Sonu Niigaam and Michael Jackson met over the Internet.

Sonu Niigaam's fan page on Facebook served as a platform. The artist called his fans at first to write and to send in lyrics and then to compos and sent in music according to lyrics. Finally they were searching for singers, who were also selected based on their vocal samples from English songs. Everything was put on the fan page and fans were asked for comments.
Sonu Niigaam, who lately participated as a judge in Indian TV shows like "Indian Idol", "SaReGaMa-Little Champs" (similar to "American Idol") gave also repeatedly tips and examples and guidelines to the young musicians, as to how the song lyrics should be written and a song should be composed.

After the selection process, where the fans were also able to participate on Facebook, it was soon decided who were the aspiring writer, composer and singer: Geetha Balsaara and Sowmya Raoh wrote the text, Saikat-Shankar composed the music and the singers were, besides Sonu Niigaam himself, Natalie Di Luccio, Jonita Gandhi, Devika Mathur, Salman Asif, Parashar Joshi and George Kuruvilla.

The song is available for free as podcast on ITUNES and also on Youtube as a video with pictures of all participants.

BNA - Germany
Bollywood-News-Agency

Alexandra Ccahuana Tito / Openpr.com