‘Bollywood singers forced to work for free’: Abhijeet Sawant says Indian composer earns Rs 80 lakh royalty every month for 2 songs | Music News
3 min readNew DelhiFeb 4, 2026 09:45 PM IST With singer Arijit Singh’s exit from the world of playback singing, the debate about singers getting their fair due has never been louder. People are wondering about an industry which can’t seem to hold on to its biggest stars and worrying about the state of the artists who are many rungs lower in terms of popularity and agency. Recently, singer Abhijeet Sawant talked about the same phenomenon and whether playback singers get the right remuneration or not. While appearing on Pentarise Studios’ YouTube channel, Abhijeet was asked bluntly by the host about the payment structure of film music. Hesitant at first, Abhijeet said, “People don’t want the singers to become bigger than the film itself. That’s why they are paid a certain amount. Musicians still don’t receive royalties for film music. So Biddu, who worked on Lafzon Mein, also did a couple of songs in the West, and he gets so much royalty payment from those two songs that he can survive his whole life on …
