Necessary for celebs to secure personality rights: Kumar Sanu | Hindi Movie News

Kumar Sanu, who performed in the city recently, spoke to us about his love for Ahmedabad, why it is imperative that celebrities secure personality rights, nepotism, and his daughters’ independent musical journey. Shares Sanu, “I always feel good when I come to Ahmedabad. I have a lot of friends here, who feed me delicious fafda-jalebi every time. The Gujarati audience is always warm and cheerful, and they understand songs. So, I like to perform here.”Beyond the city’s warmth, it’s the culinary offerings that keep bringing the singer back. “I love the vegetarian platter that Ahmedabad offers. It’s the best,” he says.‘AI is a great tool, but is being misused’Recently, the singer joined the list of Bollywood celebs who approached the Delhi High Court to protect their personality rights. Sanu says, “It’s necessary for celebrities to protect their rights because AI – despite being a great technological advancement – is sometimes misused. For example, there are 15 fake social media channels, so those needed to be stopped as they were being operated without my consent. People think of new ways to earn money, but their meanings are not legal. So, we need to control them through legal intervention.”‘Every parent would want their child to excel’2025 has been an interesting year for Sanu’s singer-daughter Shannon K, who performed at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, making her a part of a short list of Indian artistes who have taken Indian music to the fest. Speaking about Shannon’s performance and singing career, he shares, “The most important thing for me is that whatever Shannon is doing, she is doing it on her own. I can, as a father, only help her monetarily because nobody knows who Kumar Sanu is in Hollywood. My younger daughter is also a music composer, and she’s composed a lot of songs for Shannon. I feel proud of having two talented, hard-working daughters.”As the conversation steers towards the nepotism debate, the Aashiqui singer feels that the word itself is incorrect. “There’s a lot of chatter around this term, but I feel it’s a completely wrong word. Every parent would want their child to do well in life. They put effort into the same, and when the child succeeds, you cannot call it nepotism. In my case, even though my daughter doesn’t use my name, I have helped her music-wise,” he expresses.‘Reality shows don’t help in the long run’Sanu has been a part of several reality shows as a judge. However, he feels these shows do more harm than good for the contestants. “There’s no single talent hunt or show. Different channels come up with different shows, and each one picks its top three singers. By that logic, each year, there are about 15 new singers fighting for fame. The problem is these youngsters get a platform and don’t face the struggle. Often, they end up not valuing what they get. At the same time, they sing our songs and mimic our style – creativity dies there. So, there’s no originality in their personality or their singing,” he explains.Kumar Sanu shares, “I have sung in more than 1,500 films, and around 26,000 songs. So, it’s impossible to pick a favourite. But based on its universality and meaningfulness, Jab koi baat bigad jaye is close to my heart.”He adds, “Singers from reality shows never make it to the mainstream because they get fame early on and lack originality. One must sustain their ‘riyaz’ and work ethic. The winners often start doing paid shows very early, which gives them money, but they never make it mainstream.”-Harsh Kashiv