Smule Mirchi Cover Star, one of India’s leading digital talent hunts, has announced Chirag Chopra from Lucknow as the winner of Season 3. After a nail-biting finale, judges – Meet Bros, Kanika Kapoor, Neeti Mohan and Harshdeep Kaur gave Bollywood and the Indian audiences a new coveted artist.
Despite the global pandemic, Smule Mirchi Cover Star witnessed an overwhelming response, clocking in over 50,000 entries across metros and niche markets in India. This process was made extremely convenient and user-friendly with the help of Smule, the social singing app, which had a specially curated playlist and easy navigation for singers to send in their entries from anywhere at any time with just one click. The Top 10 contestants then gathered audiences to jam with them on the Smule app to create a musical experience. Each participant generated points on parameters like Sur, Taal, Harkat and Andaaz. Based on the engagement on the app, Top 5 contestants were selected along with one wild card entry to compete with each other at the grand finale.
In a never-seen-before musical showdown, the finalists – Rutuja Pande from Chennai, Sahana DN from Bengaluru, Neha Sachan from Hyderbadad, Chirag Chopra from Lucknow, Hrishikesh Subramonian from Trivandrum and the first ever wild card entry winner Saurabh Sachin Narsikar from Aurangabad went head-on with each other to battle their way to become the Smule Mirchi cover star winner.
Chirag Chopra not only won the coveted title but also won a number of exciting prizes – a prize money of INR 3 lakhs along with an opportunity to be featured in an all new cinematic music video with a well-reputed music label, which will kick start his promising career. Furthermore, he will be personally mentored by Meet Bros to perform live at this year’s Mirchi Music Awards, India’s leading music awards.
Chirag Chopra, winner of Smule Mirchi Cover Star said, “I am very grateful and happy for having won Smule Mirchi Cover Star’s Season 3. It was an exciting journey and a fulfilling experience to compete at a national level with such talented peers from across the country. I believe initiatives like Smule Mirchi Cover Star are crucial game changers in the music industry since they unearth unheard voices and gives them an opportunity to build a career.”
One of the renowned judges, Neeti Mohan, says, “I am so happy to have been a part of Smule Mirchi Cover Star. We saw some unique talent from across the country participate this season. It was a close call for the Cover Star crown and an exception journey to be a part of.”
“This was yet another very successful season of Smule Mirchi Cover Star. We are baffled by the sheer talent that we see very year and it was amazing how Mirchi and Smule pulled this off amidst the pandemic. We congratulate Chirag and look forward to mentoring and seeing him on the stage of Mirchi Music Awards,” said third-time judges – Meet Bros.
Harshdeep Kaur says, “I was overwhelmed to witness such beautiful and diverse voices. I believe platforms like Smule Mirchi Cover Star are extremely crucial to bring our country’s hidden talent to the fore. We simply congratulate all the contestants and the winner and I’m sure they have a very successful music career ahead.”
Talking about the winner, Kanika Kapoor says, “Chirag is a phenomenal singer and extremely worthy of the Smule Mirchi Cover Star title. It was a pleasure to be on the jury panel and play a small role in propelling the careers of these amazing artists.”
Nandan Srinath, Executive President, Mirchi said, “Mirchi is the leading city-centric music and entertainment company, and with its marquee initiative – Smule Mirchi Cover Star – it aims to provide a platform to the budding artists across India to showcase their talent. We are honoured to announce Chirag as the winner of Season 3 and congratulate him/her as well as all the competing contestants for putting their best foot forward.”