Armaan Malik says singers don’t get paid for singing in movies: There was a phase where I was replaced in…

Singer Armaan Malik spoke candidly about the 'politics' he has seen in Bollywood and explained why he has chosen to leave the film industry. According to Armaan, Bollywood singers have accepted the unfair reality that they won't be rewarded for their efforts, and they frequently get replaced on projects for unknown reasons.

Armaan claimed on Raj Shamani's show that he was scarred from being replaced several times. “That phase, where I was being replaced, I thought, ‘To hell with this s**t’.” Armaan claimed that after spending a few months in New Zealand and detoxing, he made the decision to leave it all up and concentrate on his own music.

He said, “There was a phase where I was replaced in quite a few songs in Bollywood, which scarred me, in a way. I was like, ‘Am I not a good singer?’ And I can’t let that happen to me. I’m very sure of how I am as a singer. But it’s the circumstances… If I’m replaced because I’ve not sung the song well, I’ll accept that. But if I’m replaced because of certain factors or politics, that’s unacceptable. That happened so much to me, and still does, I’ll be frank. I moved on from that…”

Singers aren't paid to sing in movie songs, he said, revealing further taboos regarding Bollywood. He said, "Obviously, you do certain things for the love of music, but there’s also a monetary motivation… At the end of the day, think of it as a job… It’s crazy that as singers, we don’t get to see that. We are so used to this (not being paid) that it is not even a conversation. They feel if the song is a hit, the singers will earn through live shows. There’s no conversation. It’s just like, ‘Are you free to come to the studio?’ We come, we sing the song, and the next day you find out someone else has sung the song… Sometimes, even composers don’t get paid. The streaming revenue goes to the labels. This could be a story that we’re uncovering here, but not many people know this, the general public doesn’t know that their favourite artists are not being paid.”