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MAYANK BHARARA [DJ MuNkS]
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Born and brought up in the Bollywood capital of the world, Mumbai, Mayank has been musically inclined ever since he can remember. His music career has been ‘‘engineered” by his dedication, devotion and continuous focused work towards a simple goal…. To make a difference!!
Inspired by the musical brilliance of the likes of Ustad Allah Rakha and Ustad Zakir Hussain, he learnt to play classical and commercial Tabla at a very young age. His love for Indian percussions got him playing instruments like Dholak, Kachhi, Dhol and Bongo’s amongst other instruments. At the age of 14, a combination of his love for music and a technical orientation led him to decide to pursue a career in Sound Engineering. To achieve this goal and to set a good base he graduated in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from Mumbai University [India].
While still at school, he won the best elocutionist of Mumbai award. This led to him being instantly picked up by All India Radio as a guest speaker where he continued to work as a recording and editing assistant for 2 years. He worked as a junior show coordinator at Channel [V] for a few months, also being involved in a number of college events and festivals. He won a number of prizes at inter-college music festivals while playing with a fusion band and was also the Joint-Cultural Secretary of his college and organised multi-day multi-cultural festivals and events.
Later, being influenced by the club culture, he took up PR for an event organising group called Awakening and set his foot on DJ’ing hooking up with the likes of DJ Nasha, Suketu, Russel & Freeze. His talent being recognised by DJ Gaurav’s company ‘Global Sound Management, he DJ’ed at a number of high profile weddings and corporate events around Delhi with them. He also played at a number of student festivals in Mumbai and was by now known as DJ MUNKS.
Mayank then crossed over to UK to further his Sound Engineering dream & did a MSc. in Music Engineering and Production. He worked, produced & recorded with a number of local bands in the studios including a 30 member ‘Wonderbrass Band’. He conceptualised the ‘South Asian Music Society’ at the university students union and was the president, DJ and organiser of a number of cultural and club events. He sound engineered at a local radio station called GTFM for 8 months while also working on TV & short film shoots as a location sound engineer for Channel 4 and ITV Wales.
As a DJ he was picked up by the biggest Asian events group in Wales called ‘Vibrasians.com‘ & shot to fame in a matter of months of being in the UK. He DJ’ed at and helped organising some of the biggest events in UK like the Cardiff Asian Ball 2007/08, Cardiff Mela 07 along with a number of club nights. He has performed with artists like Jay Sean, Raghav, Panjabi MC, Dr. Zeus, RDB, Juggy D, Lisa Mafia, Lehmbher Hussainpuri, Imran Khan, DJ Fricktion, Nihal, H-Dhami, Rishi Rich, DJ Gaurav, DJ Raheem, DJ H, DJ Mostwanted, Lovesoul DJ’s, DJ Jamie Duggan and many more.
He was the resident DJ at one of the biggest clubs in Cardiff called ‘Monchinos’ where he has DJ’ed for some of the biggest concert after parties like that of Rhianna, Alice Cooper, Westlife, Status Quo, Foo Fighters, Korn, Beach Boys, Stereophonics, Madness and many others.
He is considered to be the best Bollywood DJ in the UK also being highly proficient in Bhangra, RnB, House, Electro, Rock, Retro, Hip-Hop and mixes it up in his unique style. He has produced his own remixes in different music genres and also created numerous non-stop DJ mix sessions.
He has done Bollywood music reviews for BBC Asian Network and has also been featured doing a live set on the famous Bobby Friction‘s show on BBC Radio under the “Superstar DJ’s” segment. After his set Bobby Friction announced, “I have never heard Bollywood played like that ever before. Surely DJ Munks is one of the best in the country.”
He was doing all of the above while still pursuing his MSc. After his graduation with a high merit, he was recruited by India’s media giant ‘Zee Network’ for their newly launched “Zee Radio” – a London based purely Bollywood radio station. He was the Station Engineer & Production Manager and handled the station’s complete engineering & broadcast. He also produced music for adverts, jingles along with other hosting, programming & management jobs. He is very comfortable using a number of audio & video software like RCS, Adobe Audition, Cooledit, Cubase, Protools, Reason, Soundforge, Acid Pro, Final Cut Pro, etc. He has worked with different microphones for small to large scale music recordings for bands.
He then worked in the TV arena for Sikh Channel & Brit Asia music channel in Birmigham as a Broadcast Engineer & Production Manager. He designed the channel scheduling, produced & directed daily live shows including music performances, talk shows, kids shows, discussions & news. He setup studios sets, camera shots, sound mix & design, lighting, graphics, vision mixing and also managed the full edit team for channel production.
He has also worked for Panjab Radio, ITV, Channel 4 & BBC in due course of time. He is now back with ZEE TV and manages marketing for 5 ZEE Network channels for their UK & Europe operations.
One of his biggest achievements so far was the multi-million pound annual Bollywood Awards show for Zee TV – ‘ZEE CINE AWARDS‘ in London 2008 at the Excel Docklands Exhibition Centre which he executed successfully as the location event co-ordinator. This event saw the presence of most of the Bollywood film industry along with top industry professionals.
On the DJ’ing front his biggest achievement was DJ’ing at a private function in 2008 where he did the pre-performance warm up set for US RnB Superstar – KELLY ROWLAND.
He also does special music design & is at his best when it comes to handling the music for Asian weddings, receptions, mehndi, sangeet & other private functions.
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— Aashish Sharma
PR
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