Pritam Biography

Pritam Chakraborty a.k.a Pritam was born on June 14, 1971 in a Bengali family to Anuradha and Prabodh Chakraborty. Pritam Chakraborty since his childhood got his training from his father, and he had started learning guitar when he was still in school.

Since then he developed an interest in music composing songs. He got married to Smita Bhattacharya and have a daughter.

Career

After finishing his schooling at St. James’ School and graduating in Geology in 1992 from Presidency College, Pritam Chakraborty  dropped out of his M.Sc. classes in 1993 to chart a career of his own choice from FTII, Pune, where he took up Sound Recording and Engineering in 1994. Amid this time, he was offered an opportunity to create background music for a film by the Hungarian filmmaker Istvan Gaal.

Pritam Chakraborty joined a Bangla band, Chandrabindoo. Before that, he formed another band with his Presidency batchmates, called “Jotugriher Pakhi” for which, he used to play the Guitar.

They even have a cassette tape released to their credit at that time.

He went to St. James’ School and has a bachelor’s degree in Geology from Presidency College. Pritam joined FTII, Pune where he took up Sound Recording and Engineering in 1994. During this time, he was offered a chance to compose background music for a film by the Hungarian filmmaker Istvan Gaal.

Pritam Chakraborty formed a band with his Presidency batch mates, called “Jotugriher Pakhi” for which, he used to play the guitar.[8] They even have a cassette released to their credit at that time. Pritam joined a Bangla band, Chandrabindoo. Later Pritam started band Metro with James, Suhail, Soham and Eric during his film called Life in a… Metro.

After completing his sound engineering course from FTII Pune, Pritam came to Mumbai in 1997. He started composing ad jingles where he met other budding artists such as Shantanu Moitra, Rajkumar Hirani, Sanjay Gadhvi and Jeet Gannguli.

Pritam Chakraborty composed renowned jingles for brands like Santro, Emami, McDonald’s, Head & Shoulders, Thums Up, Limca, Complan and composed title tracks for TV serials such as Astitva, Kkavyanjali, Ye Meri Life Hai, Remix, Kashmeer, Miilee, and Dil Kya Kare.

Jeet-Pritam

Pritam got his first break for Tere Liye (released December 2001) though the music was well-received, the film missed the mark. In 2002, The Jeet-Pritam duo once again composed music for Yash Raj Films’ Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai. All the songs from that movie were chartbusters. Soon after, over some misunderstanding, Jeet decided to split and the partners went their separate ways.

Pritam gave a biggest hit of his life with Dhoom movie’s music. It became an instant hit all across the world. He followed this up with compositions for films like Jannat, Gangster and Dhoom 2. His compositions for Anurag Basu’s Life in a… Metro garnered him very positive reviews.

He formed a band called Metro with Suhail Kaul, Soham Chakraborty, Eric Pillai and Bangladeshi singer James for the movie.

He won his second Zee Cine Award for Best Track of the Year for the song “Mauja hi Mauja” from Jab We Met by Imtiaz Ali.

Jab We Met won him his first Apsara Award for Best Music Director. He composed for two more Imtiaz Ali films, Love Aaj Kal and Cocktail which were critically and commercially successful.

His Sufi songs for the 2010 movie Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai were immensely popular with the masses and songs like “Pee loon“”Tum Jo Aaye” were declared chartbusters.  

He teamed up again with Mahesh Bhatt and Vishesh Films for music of Crook of which the song “Mere Bina” got instant recognition with public.

His foot-tapping numbers for Rohit Shetty’s Golmaal 3 were also equally successful. In 2011, he got to work for Salman Khan’s Ready and Bodyguard.

He recreated the famous 1971 song, “Dum Maro Dum” for Ramesh Sippy’s 2011 movie of the same name.

He then composed for the romance Mausam which had a strong influence of Punjabi. The songs were phenomenal hits in Northern India with “Rabba Main to Mar Gaya Oye” being a rage among people.

In 2012, he composed several successful songs for films like Players, Agent Vinod, Jannat 2 and Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Ferrari Ki Sawaari, where he finally got to work with him and Rajkumar Hirani. Later that year, he scored music for Barfi! Which won him two Filmfare Awards. Barfi is considered to be one of the most critically acclaimed soundtrack album of his career.

By 2013, his list included Race 2, Murder 3, Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani, Dhoom 3 and Once Upon at Time in Mumbai Dobaara which was his 100th movie as a Music Director in Bollywood. He started 2014 with compositions for Yaariyan, Shaadi Ke Side Effects & Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty. He then took a break in 2014

He marked his return with three successful albums in 2015: Kabir Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan & Phantom and Rohit Shetty’s Dilwale for which he was nominated for Filmfare awards.

The Song, “Gerua” from Dilwale directly opened at the No. 1 position on the Radio Mirchi charts and became the first Bollywood song to cross 100 million views on YouTube in the shortest duration ever.

It also ranked in the top slot in places like Malaysia, Oman, Sri Lanka and Bahrain. In 2016, he appeared as a guest composer and composed the song “Itni Si Baat Hai” for Azhar the albums other composers were Amaal Mallik and Dj Chetas.

He also composed the whole soundtracks of Dishoom, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and Dangal. In 2017, he composed the soundtracks of Jagga Jasoos, Raabta along with Sohrabuddin, Sourav Roy and JAM8, Tubelight and Jab Harry Met Sejal along with Diplo.

In 2019, he composed songs for Kalank and will produce the music for Brahmastra. 83- The Film is lined up for 2020.

JAM8

For the budding musicians of our country, there are very less options for them to try and make a career, with an immense talent people in India who have dream to be a singer or music directors in their life Pritam Chakraborty hs made it simple for them he has opened a music incubation platform founded by music composer Pritam in 2016 for budding musicians.

Being associated with Prime Focus Ltd, a media service powerhouse and KWAN, a talent management company, JAM8 uses high-quality technology and infrastructure to offer solutions to music across all segments covering movies, advertisements and the OTT space, providing the best in quality music output.

JAM8 has over a brief period given music for brands like Duracell, Maruti Suzuki, Close Up, Nerolac amongst other prominent brands.

Some of their film work consists of songs like Zaalima, Saason Ke, Dhingaana from Raees, Main Hoon Sath Tere from Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana and Sajan Bade Senti from Badhaai Ho, the whole album of Bhangra Paa Le movie.

Television

Pritam Chakraborty has judged many Television shows such as Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2009, Chhote Ustad on Zee Tv, He was also a guest judge for the X factor and Zee Bangla’s Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2012–13.

He also composed the title track for Hrithik Roshan’s TV series Just Dance for Star TV which was sung by KK. Pritam Chakraborty sang some of his top hits on the popular show MTV Unplugged on 13 February 2016.

Pritam is the mentor and judge of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2016 alongside Mika Singh and Sajid–Wajid He was also a part of Star plus’ show Dil Hai Hindustani as a judge alongside Sunidhi Chauhan and Badshah in 2018.

Collaborations

• Stumped – K.K, Shaan, Anjan Srivastava
• Naksha – K.K
• Life In A…Metro – Soham Chakraborty, Suhail Kaul
• Race – Monai Thakur, Neeraj Sridhar
• Toh Baat Pakki – Rana Mazumder, Soham Chakraborty
• Agent Vinod – Mika Singh, Amitabh Bhattacharya, Nakash Aziz.
• Barfi – Amitabh Bhattacharya, Vishal Dadhlani, Mohit Chauhan.

Awards

• FilmFare Awards For Best Music Director – Barfi!, Ae Dil Hain Mushkil, Jagga Jasoos, Jagga Jasoos.
• Mirchi Music Awards – Music Composers Of The Year – Dilwale, Ae Dil Hain Mushkil, Jab Harry Met Sejal.
• Indian Television Academy Award – ITA Award for Best Title Music/Song Track
• Annual Central European Bollywood Awards
• Global Indian Music Awards.