Zubeen Garg, the singer and multi-instrumentalist who became a household name in India with the Bollywood hit “Ya Ali,” died on Friday in Singapore. He was 52.
His death was confirmed by the North East India Festival in Singapore, where Mr. Garg had been scheduled to perform over the weekend. Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of Assam State in India’s northeast, also confirmed it at a news conference.
Mr. Sarma told reporters that the cause of death was drowning. The Singaporean government did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Mr. Garg.
Mr. Garg made music blending the folk traditions of Assam with pop and rock. With a powerful voice, he sang romantic ballads as easily as mournful ones. He performed in dozens of languages and dialects, played multiple instruments, acted in films, composed film scores and filled concert venues.
“Ya Ali,” his breakthrough song about love and longing, was featured on the soundtrack of the Bollywood movie “Gangster” (2006).
Mr. Garg was the playback singer — a vocalist who does not appear onscreen, but records songs that actors lip-synch — on “Ya Ali.” He won the prize for best playback singer at the 2006 Global Indian Film Awards.
Zubeen Garg was born in the northeastern state of Meghalaya, near Assam, in 1972, several Indian news media outlets reported. He attended high school and college in Assam, but never finished the science degree he was pursuing. He chose instead to focus on music full-time.
Mr. Garg’s debut album, “Anamika,” was released in 1992 when he was 19.
Mr. Garg’s career spanned almost three decades and he sang thousands of songs in multiple Indian languages. The success of “Ya Ali” surprised him.
“I didn’t know it would become so big,” he told an Indian television show in 2012. “It was good for me, too.”
For millions of fans, his voice was a refuge. His music embraced the diversity of a part of India that is rife with ethnic tensions, and he was widely seen as a down-to-earth personality even as he became a celebrity.
He chose to live mostly in Assam, a far northeastern state in the Himalayan foothills, rather than in Mumbai, the coastal megacity on the other side of India that is home to Bollywood.
He did not shy away from politics. Alongside a group of other Assamese singers, Mr. Garg challenged a contentious 2019 citizenship law that was championed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and set off deadly protests. Critics saw the law as glaring evidence that the government wanted to turn India into a Hindu-centric state, marginalizing its 200 million minority Muslims.
He challenged orthodoxy, too. At a 2024 concert, he questioned a revered Hindu god.
“Krishna is not a God,” he said. “He was a man.”
For that, he was asked to refrain from performing in Majuli, the seat of one of Hinduism’s sects in Assam, the local news media reported at the time.
Information on Mr. Garg’s survivors was not immediately available on Monday.
In 2024, he received an honorary degree from the University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya, in recognition of his musical contributions, according to a news release.
After his body was flown home to Assam, millions of people followed it from the airport to the stadium in Assam’s largest city, Guwahati. Prayers and tributes echoed across the state, and loudspeakers in narrow alleys blared his songs as people gathered to mourn.
Mark Walker is an investigative reporter for The Times focused on transportation. He is based in Washington.
Suhasini Raj is a reporter based in New Delhi who has covered India for The Times since 2014.
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