Hear Shivanna sing about Kannada pride for V Ravichandran’s Kannadiga title track

Shivarajkumar is not as prolific a singer as his late brother Puneeth Rajkumar was, having taken to the microphone very few times, like, for instance, for Kannada Kaliyo from 2018’s Tarakasura. This week, the team of Crazy Star V Ravichandran’s upcoming film, Kannadiga, released its title track, which has been sung by Shivanna. Written by lyricist-filmmaker Santhosh Ananddram, the song has been composed by Ravi Basrur and is all about Kannada language and the pride one should have for it, in keeping with the central theme of the film. After the recording in Bengaluru, Shivanna had been quoted as saying that it gave him great joy to sing a song and that too, one of such importance, for a Ravichandran film.

Hear the song here:  

In the period film Kannadiga, directed by BM Giriraj (of Jatta fama), Ravichandran plays Gunabhadra, who hails from a scribe’s family, whose primary concern is to safeguard the sanctity of the Kannada language. Paavana is paired with Ravichandran in the film, which also stars Jayashree, Jamie Alter, Balaji Manohar and Rockline Venkatesh in pivotal roles. Jamie, the son of veteran actor Tom Alter, makes his Kannada film debut with Kannadiga, wherein he plays Reverend Ferdinand Kittel, who is credited with producing the first Kannada-English dictionary. The movie was predominantly shot in locations across Mangaluru, Chikkamgaluru and Shivamogga. Speaking about her role, Paavana had said, “"This role required me to speak in a different dialect of Kannada. I liked the challenges that came with the film and this was one of the reasons I said yes to the film. Director BM Giriraj helped me understand the complexities of the role and prepped me when I found it hard getting the dialect right during the course of the film."

Produced by NS Rajkumar, Kannadiga has been cleared with U/A certification, and is gearing up for release shortly.