Mid-Day Anniversary Special | Raghu Dixit: Mumbai helped me launch my career in a huge way

Raghu Dixit, A folk singer remembers his roots amidst huge success and fame

Mumbai holds a special place in Indian folk musician Raghu Dixit’s heart because it was a city of many firsts for him, coming all the way from Mysuru. He first performed as, The Raghu Dixit Project, his current band that has showcased unique tunes not only in English but also Hindi and Kannada in Mumbai. Incidentally, it was a few years after he first performed in the city in 2003 at Mood-Indigo (Mood-I), the college festival of Indian Institute of Bombay (IIT-B), with his former band Antaragni, that they disbanded in 2005. He shared, “For about three-four years, I was lurking in darkness about how to take this forward or to the bigger scene.”

That darkness dispelled and his initial days in Mumbai, have been musically captured in his song, ‘I’m in Mumbai, Waiting for a Miracle’. Dixit is known for many hits over the years including ‘Hey Bhagwan’. 

Dixit used to practise Bharatanatyam 

He used to stay with ad filmmaker Shashanka Ghosh, his friend from Bengaluru and formerly associated with Channel V, who would host him at his home in Versova, while he was trying to make it big in the ‘City of Dreams’. Dixit said, “Whenever I came down with my demos, his house would be my roti, kapda, makaan. He would clear out his son’s room, and say you crash here.” The home, said the Indian singer and composer, “became venue for rooftop jams and mehfils of music and poetry every evening. I met Anurag Kashyap and Piyush Mishra amongst others. Every one of them only told me beautiful things that encouraged me to stick to my goals.”

SEE PHOTOS | From Enrique Iglesias to Travis Scott: International artists performing in India in 2025

Ghosh got him a solo gig to perform at the now-shuttered Zenzi Bar in Bandra in 2006. Dixit reminisces, “To start with, it was just four people on the guest list, who were all my friends, and then slowly people started trickling in. I performed only my originals on that day because Zenzi was known for its indie scene.”

The performance is what set the beat going for his career that now spans over close to three decades. He shares, “In the crowd was Vijay Nair from OML, and Vishal Dadlani, and that’s where they discovered my music.” The year was 2007, and Bollywood’s popular duo Vishal-Shekhar got him to release his music through their label. Nair and Dadlani tested the same folk tunes at a local lifestyle store called ‘Dhoop’ in Bandra. “They just wanted to know whether their friends felt the same,” he laughed. 

With a music journey that has gone international since, Dixit started at the Bandra Amphitheatre, where he launched his first album. He smiled as he said, “It was a surreal concert. Vishal-Shekhar got the entire Bollywood crowd to rally behind. Whoever walked into their studio was forced to listen to my music and give a byte,” he guffawed.

From Shah Rukh Khan to Amitabh Bachchan and the family, Priyanka Chopra, Karan Johar and Sujoy Ghosh, he cherishes every memory. 

He said, “For the album launch, they got Sanju baba (Sanjay Dutt) to launch it, and it was a great concert in the evening. Mumbai helped me launch my career in a huge way.” The Masters in Microbiology and  gold medallist from the University of Mysuru, wrapped up, “Mumbai has always embraced me, welcomed me, and loved me.”

2003
First performance in Mumbai

Mid-Day Anniversary Special: Wild Wild Women revisit their journey of breaking barriers to carve their own space