Badshah (rapper)

Aditya Prateek Singh Sisodia (born 19 November 1984), known professionally as Badshah, is an Indian rapper, singer, songwriter, and producer. Badshah's music style is diverse encompassing Indian pop, hip-hop, synthwave, underground rap, pop rap and hardcore rap music. He has his songs in Hindi, English, Punjabi and Harayanvi languages. He is currently signed with Universal Music Group. He has contributed to several Bollywood movies including Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, Veere Di Wedding, Bala, Namaste England, Kapoor and Sons, Crew, Good Newwz and Khoobsurat.

His commercial debut single, "DJ Waley Babu" featuring Aastha Gill, was ranked number one on the Indian iTunes and Spotify charts within 24 hours of the release. The song crossed 10 million views on YouTube within 30 hours. In 2016, he collaborated with Navv Inder on "Wakhra Swag" which won the 2016 Punjabi Music Awards for best duo/group and most popular song of the year award. He has appeared in Forbes India Celebrity 100 in 2017, 2018 and 2019 as one of the highest-paid celebrities in India and as the only rapper in the list.

As of 2020, three of his songs appeared on World Digital Song Sales chart by Billboard.

Early life and education
Aditya Prateek Singh Sisodia was born in Delhi to a Sisodia Rajput Hindu family. His father, from Haryana, was a government officer, and his mother, from Punjab, was a teacher. He has a younger sister named Aprajita Singh.

He completed his schooling from Bal Bharati Public School, Pitampura, Delhi where he performed with his school choir. Prior to becoming a full-time musician he enrolled as a student of civil engineering at the Punjab Engineering College (PEC), Chandigarh, where he was exposed to new Punjabi music which promoted him to take on rap writing.

Career
He started his career in the music industry with the name "Cool Equal", but then changed his name to Badshah. He further is known for his catchphrase "it's your boy Badshah", often stylized as "Ish yo boy Baad-uh-sh-aa-ah".

On 7 August 2020, the rapper released a classic pop and hip-hop album namely, 'The Power of Dreams of a Kid' which had eight tracks and includes features from the artists namely Lisa Mishra, Sikander Kahlon, Fotty Seven, Bali and Music Producer Andy Grewal. The mastering and mixings of the album was done by Aditya Dev. His 2019 song "Paagal" reached 74.8 million views on YouTube within 24 hours, setting the record for the most-viewed video in 24 hours on YouTube., YouTube did not confirm the record. Badshah's label then Sony Music, confirmed that they had used the help of advertisements from Google ad sense to promote the song.

An explanation for YouTube not acknowledging the record was that Badshah's record label Sony Music India had purchased advertisements from Google and YouTube that embedded the video or directed fans to it in some way. However, it has emerged that this is a common practice in the global music industry, and that similar practices had previously been used by the record labels of previous record holders such as Ariana Grande and Blackpink. This has cast doubt on some of the 24-hour viewership records on YouTube.

His song "Genda Phool" was released by Sony Music India in 2020. It had mixing with a Bengali folk song "Boro Loker Biti Lo". Ratan Kahar, a Bengali artist, claimed to be the original writer and composer of the folk song. Though Badshah later released a statement saying that it was a traditional Baul folk song which was not copyrighted, since folk music does not fall under copyright protections and is thus in the public domain.

He again collaborated with Jacqueline Fernandez in the song Pani Pani, the song is sung by Aastha Gill along with him. The song has been viewed more than 500 million times on YouTube. He further released the Bhojpuri version of the song by collaborating with Khesari Lal Yadav. He rapped in the song in Bhojpuri language. The Bhojpuri version got more than one million views in less than an hour and became the first Bhojpuri song to do so.

Personal life
Badshah married Jasmine Masih in 2012; In January 2017, they had a daughter together named Jessemy Grace Masih Singh.

As actor
In 2019, Badshah began his acting career through the film Khandaani Shafakhana where he plays the role of a music superstsar who helps and supports the protagonist in the movie. He also had few other cameo appearances and works in movies mentioned here