ਲਾਭ ਜੰਜੂਆਲਾਭ ਜੰਜੂਆ

Labh Janjua (1957 to 22 October 2015) was a Punjabi bhangra singer and Bollywood playback vocalist from Majra village near Khanna, in Ludhiana district, whose raw, high energy voice carried one of the most famous Punjabi songs ever recorded. His vocals on Panjabi MC's Mundian To Bach Ke took bhangra from Punjab and the British Asian underground to dance floors around the world, and a decade later the same voice was singing Jee Karda and London Thumakda at the top of Bollywood.

Majra village and a grandfather's kirtan

Janjua was born in 1957 into a Jat Sikh family and was born and brought up in Majra village, Khanna, in the Ludhiana district of Punjab. Music came to him at home: he learned by attending the kirtans of his grandfather, and he won prizes for singing through school and college. He studied at Mata Gujri College, Fatehgarh Sahib, and in Khanna he learned music under a well known local teacher, the late Jaswant Bhanwra. He kept homes in both Mumbai and Khanna, and the village grounding never left his singing: even his most polished film songs keep the open throated attack of a singer raised on devotional music and folk stages.

Through the 1990s he built a career in Punjabi music with albums including Bair Bura Hunda Jatt Da, Beyond Belief, Bewafa and Labh Janjua: The King. The songs were unmistakably his: Jatt Di Nazar Buri, Goli Jatt Ne Katcheri'ch Chaloni, Jatt Marda. It was a strong regional career, but the song that changed everything was already being made.

Mundian To Bach Ke: the song that circled the world

In 1998 the British producer Panjabi MC built a track around Janjua's voice and the Knight Rider theme, and Mundian To Bach Ke was born. Re-released in 2002, it became a phenomenon: a top five hit in the United Kingdom, a chart success across Europe, and a permanent fixture of weddings, clubs and film soundtracks. A later version, Beware of the Boys, carried Jay-Z. The song's opening lines, sung in Janjua's voice, are among the most recognised sounds in global pop, and they introduced millions of listeners who knew nothing of Punjab to the sound of bhangra. Janjua himself shot to fame with it from 1999, as the voice the world had heard without knowing his name.

Bollywood calls

Bollywood took its time, but when it called, it called him for the biggest party songs of the decade. His film break came in 2007, and that year alone brought Soni De Nakhre in Partner, O Yara Dhol Bajake in Dhol and songs in Garam Masala and Hattrick. In 2008 he sang Jee Karda and Talli Hua in Singh Is Kinng and Dance Pe Chance with Sunidhi Chauhan in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, fixing his voice in the ears of a whole generation of filmgoers.

The run continued through Dev.D (Mahi Mennu, Hikknaal), Band Baaja Baaraat (Baari Barsi), Krazzy 4 and Money Hai Toh Honey Hai. Then, in 2014, came London Thumakda in Queen, the wedding song that became one of the most successful of his career and put his voice at the centre of one of the decade's best loved films. His last film songs, in Singh Is Bliing and Second Hand Husband, arrived in 2015, and more of his recordings were released after his death, in Vodka Diaries and Prakash Electronic (2017).

How did a village singer's voice end up in a global hit?

The short answer is that the voice was never really a studio product. Janjua sang the way Punjabi folk singers have always sung, at full stretch, with the consonants struck hard and the emotion on the surface. Panjabi MC heard in that voice exactly what bhangra's diaspora generation wanted: home, at club volume. Producers in Mumbai later reached for the same quality whenever a film song needed instant Punjabi energy. Few playback singers have a voice so identifiable within two seconds, and fewer still have carried it from a Ludhiana district village to both the UK charts and the top of Bollywood.

Janjua suffered from diabetes related problems, and on the morning of 22 October 2015 he was found dead at his residence in Goregaon, Mumbai, aged fifty eight. Police reported no foul play and no indication of suicide or murder. The tributes came from across the industry he had served so long from the margins: Ayushmann Khurrana wrote that his voice carried the soul of Punjab, Pritam and Shaan called it a shocking loss, and Daler Mehndi and Mika Singh joined the mourning. His last rites were held in Khanna, the town he never stopped calling home. His final bhangra album was prepared for posthumous release by his label, so that the voice, as they put it, would continue to live on.