India’s legendary singers Shankar Mahadevan and Zaakir Hussain’s band ‘Shakti’ won the ‘Best Global Music Album’ at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards 2024.
India’s legendary singers Shankar Mahadevan and Zakir Hussain’s band ‘Shakti’ won the ‘Best Global Music Album’ at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards 2024. The band won for the latest album ‘This Moment’. The show was held in Los Angeles, United States on Monday, January 5.
About the band ‘Shakti’
The fusion band comprises four popular musicians Shankar Mahadevan, Ustaad Zaakir Hussain, Selvaganesh Vinayakram, and Ganesh Rajagopalan.
Shankar Mahadevan, Zakir Hussain, and their collaborators lost the award for ‘Best Instrumental Composition’ which then John Williams – Helena’s Theme got the award at Grammys.
Shankar Mahadevan expressed gratitude in an acceptance speech by thanking the people of the band, family and friends, and India. Last, but not least, he thanked his wife whom he dedicated every note of his music.
About the album ‘This Moment’
The album ‘This Moment’ was released on June 30, 2023. This was Shakti’s first new studio album in more than 45 years. The album’s musicians were guitar synth by McLaughlin, tabla played by Ustad Zakir Hussain, song by vocalist Shankar Mahadevan, violin played by Ganesh Rajagopalan, and percussionist Selvaganesh Vinayakram.
The album consists of a total of eight songs and the duration is 57 minutes. The award-winning eight songs are “Shrini’s Dream”, “Bending the Rules”, “Karuna”, “Mohanam”, “Giriraj Sudha”, “Las Palmas”, “Changay Naino”, and “Sono Mama”.
Grammy Awards won by Ustaad Zakir Hussain
Ustaad Zakir Hussain won three awards at the Grammy Awards. Along with ‘Shakti’ the tabla player and music composer Hussain was awarded for “Pashto” in the ‘Best Global Music Performance’ category.
Also, the third award won by Hussain along with Edgar Meyer, Bela Fleck, and Rakesh Chaurasia was “As We Speak” for their collaborative work in the category for the ‘Best Contemporary Instrumental Album’ category. And the collaborative team was nominated for the category ‘Motion’.
India’s other Grammy award-winning popular personalities
Popular musician Ricky Kej again wrote the name of the Grammy’s Award history. The musician has been awarded three times previously by Grammy Awards. The Grammy legend first won the award in 2015 for ‘Winds of Samara’, the second for ‘Best New Age Alumn’ in 2022, and the third for the album ‘Divine Tides’ in 2023.
Indo-American singer Falguni Shah won the Best Children’s Music Album Grammy for ‘A Colourful World’ in 2022.
The author Neela Vaswani of the short story collection ‘Where the Long Grass Bends’ and memoir ‘You Have Given Me a Country’, won the Grammy award in the Best Children’s Album category for ‘Malala Yousafzai’ in 2015.
Popular Musician A R Rahman has won two Grammy awards, both for ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. He also won the Best Compilation Soundtrack ‘Jai Ho’.
Legendary lyricist Gulzar won the Grammy Award in 2010 for ‘Best Song Written for Visual Media’ for the song ‘Jai Ho’ from ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. Many other legendary artists made India proud by winning Grammy Awards in previous years.