Devi Sri Prasad, the youth icon has come a long way. Energy is his energy. His energy is infectious. All of us have dreams right from childhood but only few stick to them and realize them quickly. Devi is one of them. Lets dwell into more details of him.

Thanks to Mr. Satish who has provided many finer details of Devi.

– Devi Sri Prasad was born on August 2nd,1982 in Amalapuram,East Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh.

– His Father is the noted Telugu scriptwriter, composer and singer Satya Murthy. People can associate Telugu films like Chanti, Maathrudevobhava, Pedarayadu, which are script oriented.

– Devi Sri Prasad’s main inspiration is his father. His sister Padmini Priya Sagar can dance and sing. She got married. His younger brother Vidya Sagar is a singer and can pay Mandolin.He received Nandi award for “yedo priya ragam vintunna” song in “Arya”. Most of his family members are into the Music Forte.

– What makes him different from others is that he is one of the youngest music directors, composers, lyricists and also a pop-artiste who could scale to great heights in a very shot span.

– At an age when guys were just freaking out in college and not into real serious business, Devi Sri Prasad’s jargon was all about tracks, recording, sequencers, vocals, patch and midi.

– “Love Music, Live Music” is his tagline.

– Though born in Amalapuram he was brought up in Chennai.

– His father presented him a small keyboard when he was in 7th standard and that changed his life.

– He used to spend most of his time experimenting with the keyboard both at school and at home. After realizing his interest towards keyboard his father joined him to learn mandolin under the guidance of Mandolin Srinivas.He learned mandolin for more than 10 years.

– He had served as the ‘cultural secretary’ in his school. He was the school pupil leader and also the recipient of the ‘Best Outgoing Student’ award from his school.

– It was during these competitions only Devi met Sumangali who was representing other school in singing competitions.

– He also got several prizes in dance competitions along with light music at school.He studied up to BBA.

– His music indulgence started off after an interesting experience. Once his school head master was asking the students in his class as to what they would like to become. Among consistent and monotonous answers like doctors and engineers, He was the one who stood up and said that he wanted to become a music director. Everyone in the class looked at him with amazement.

– It might have started as a statement in the beginning, but over the years he felt that he was literally moving into that field. Students called him as ‘Illayaraja Jr’.

– He started off with an album project when he was in his 7th standard. He went over lot of improvisation over the years.

– But getting a break was not a cake walk for Devi. He faced lot of problems in promoting his “Mr. Devi” album. He said once that, he roamed on cycle around various audio cassette companies. He also remembers one incident where in he had to wait for 2 hours at the entrace gate of Gemini TV’s office. Altast he had to use big contacts of his father, writer Satynand, and Allu Arvind to release the audio.

– The song ‘Aye Unnoda’ was a major break for me,’ remarks Prasad. He did the music for the song and worked on the lyrics with one of his friends.He also rendered the song. ‘Aye Unnoda’ became a part of his portfolio, which attracted a lot of ears. Magna Sound spotted his talent. The song got featured in the Magna Sound collection of Tamil pop songs called ‘Dance Party’. This album, along with the video, catapulted his music career into a new dimension. Later on, Magna Sound gave Prasad an even better option. A wholly dedicated album was the offer. With the release of Mr. Devi by Magna Sound, Devi’s dream project got a concrete form.

– He started his career by scoring music to a serial “50-50″ in Gemini TV. He also sang the title song for that serial. I still remember the pallavi of the song. I was attached to the song very much in my childhood days. Kudos to Devi.

It goes this way:

“sodara ani kobatti, chebutunna secretokati..
sraddhagaa chetulukatti, vinara chitti…”

– I happened to watch his programme on “kalale nijamaite” in Gemini Televison. His sister, brother, MS Raju too came for the show and shared their experiences. One more talent of Devi came into limelight when they showed the photographs that Devi took with different themes. One particular photo is marvelous in which he brought black and white effect portraying his sister. He is a good photographer too.. He also made some videos by making his sister dance for Alisha ..Made in India..etc songs..He was too talented right from his childhood.

Then MS Raju explained how he got impressed with Devi’s talent. According to him..once he went to Devi’s house to meet Sathya murthy gaaru, father of Devi for some story discussions, while entering the home he heard some music coming out of Devi’s room and when he enquired about this with Sathya murthy gaaru he came to know that Devi is interested in becoming music director. Surprised to know this, he called Devi and asked him to compose a tune for a situation that he told. Devi asked for 1 day time and MS Raju was once again surprised as to why he needs 1 day time and asked him to compose right at that instant but Devi asked for 1 day time and the next day he made MS Raju listen to his composition. On hearing to this, MS Raju was spell bounded and told immediately to Devi that he is the music director for his next film. He also asked Devi not to put that particular song in any of his films as it is like a bridge between him and Devi.

In the same show Devi sang that song which inspired MS Raju. I don’t remember the exact tune and lyric of that song.. but it is tooo good.

– Once MS Raju told about the creation of “innallak gurtochchana vaana” song. It seems the key crew of “Varsham” were in Pragati Resorts working on the script and music settings of the film. When Devi was asked to compose, the first song Devi did a composition and showed it with great enthusiasm to MS Raju and others. To his utter surprise MS Raju became very angry and even went on criticising severely that “He is not a good music director at all. He doesn’t know music and he is unfit….etc”. On seeing this, Devi wanted to prove himself and was with great determination to comeup with something extraordinary and the next day he came up with the “innallak gurtochchana….” tune and all were very much impressed and MS Raju hugged him and revealed him the secret that they earlier behaved intentionally to bring the best out of him. Later this raw tune was taken to Sirivennela Seetarama Sastry and immediately he coined the keywords, “Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana” as a part of the lyric and it was immediately okayed. This later on became a big rage.

– Once Sirivennela Seetarama Sastry shared an interesting thing about “aakasam taakela vadagalai ee vela” song in “Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana”. The release date was announced and the shooting of this song was pending and still the lyric for the tune was not ready. Sirivennala gaaru was too busy to pen it. Then under unavoidable conditions, they went ahead with the shooting of the song using the track sung by Devi using “tanaana taa nana na”s instead of the lyric. After the completion of the shooting, Sirivennela wrote the lyric and the main song was linked to it. He regarded it as a rare and interesting feat in his career.

– On the flip side,

** The pallavi of Devi’s song, “Nenu nenugaa lenu ninna monna laa” in the movie “Manmadhudu” has close resemblences with the

song “Chori Chori Jab Najre Milee” in the Hindi Movie “Kareeb”.

** He also faced criticism as the “Bommanu geeste neela vundi” song in “Bommarillu” reminds “Bulli pitta Bujji pitta” song in “Chinarayudu”.

– Devi had a rare chance of composing music for the “Unity” song in “Telugu Cinema Vajrotsavalu” function. It was indeed a marvelous composition. I had recorded this song using my mobile during live telecast.

You can download using this link:

Vajrotsavalu Song

Later Devi composed “oh bapu nuvve raavaali” song in “Shankardada Zindabad” on these notes.

– In Music, Devi’s idol is Ilayaraja. He is mad about Ilayaraja. He once said that he has a wall size photo in his recording studio in Chennai. He had a chance to sit along with Ilayaraja in the audio release of “Anumanaspadam” and Devi expressed his happiness that it was his best moment in his life and he feels like dieing then itself as his life ambition has been realized. He also thanked the guy who made this possible and said that he was ready to do anything for him as he made his dream come true.

– Apart from Music composing and singing, Devi can pen lyrics, dance for this tunes and also can give live performances with all these combinations. This makes him unique and multifaceted music director among the current ones.

– He has a unique voice with a special roughness in his tone.

– The back ground music in the climax of “Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana” has been turned as Pournami’s “muvvala navvakala” song.

– Devi says that he feels like Ilayaraja while composing, Michael Jackson when he gives stage performance and advises that when one gets into the imagination of such coveted people then his energy levels also arise and can give his best.

– He has the habit of using “THANKS” many a times in his speeches.

– Devi gave outstanding music to “Shankardada MBBS”. It is with his splendid work that, he got a new watch as gift from Chiranjeevi (which he was wearing when he presented it) as a replacement to his earlier watch gifted by the same star. The usual slang caption “askalakadi gala gala ooha ooha….” is used in different forms by many students while cheering their team mates in sports, college functions. Devi, cleverly converted this to “Shankardada MBBS …ooha ooha” and this became a rage. It has become a mandatory song in all of his stage performances. Once in a stage show in Vijayawada, he created such an uproar in the audience that a married lady stood up and danced like anything and her husband was in great embarrassment in controlling her. Such is the impact of Devi’s presence.

– He once received severe comments that he was delaying in providing the tunes in time and this inturn was resulting in the postponement of films. In such acute pressure, he got hospitalized and he decided to compose Rerecording for “Oka Oorilo” in hospital itself. Even upon severe opposition from Sagar and his other family members, he went ahead and took permission from the hospital authorities and composed RR there itself.

– It was a pleasant surprise for Devi too when Keeravani asked him to sing a song in Sri Rama Dasu. He lent his voice for “yetellinde godaramma….hailessa heylessa…” song. He also song many songs under other music directors.

Eg:

1) Yuvakudu - Mani Sharma

2) Manmadha - Yuvan Shankar Raja

3) Sye - Keeravani

– There is one more uniqueness in Devi. Usually there are many music directors but almost all of them have given many duds apart from their super songs. But when it comes to Devi it is very difficult to find bad tunes. He says that he puts in his max efforts for all of his compositions. Only when he feels that his composition could make him dance first then only he goes ahead in making others listen to it. He says confidently that most of his songs are okayed for the first tune itself.

– There were many instant compositions like, “naa premanu kopam gaano….” song in “Arya”. Sukumar was explaining the situation and theme of the song and Devi came up with the tune immediately. Bommarillu’s “Appudo Ippudo Yeppudo” song was also an instant one.

– Sreenu Vytla and Devi share good rapport. For “Anandam” film they worked on 80 tunes and picked the best ones.

– When your playing Antyakshari beware of Devi’s songs as many of them start with “Hey…”

For example: It is “Hey…vudayinchina suryudinadigaa….”

So you should not use it for “vu”

(Do post any info you know about Devi either in the comments section or mail us: ayaskantam.com@gmail.com

So that it can be incorporated into the article and turn it as one stop source of interesting things of Devi.)

Tags: album, allu aravind, arya, Bommarillu, chennai, chiranjeevi, composing, devi, Devi Sri Prasad, Dil Raju, honey, Jalsa, kamna jethmalani, kareeb, Keeravani, lyrics, magna sound, mamta mohan das, mani sharma, Manmadhudu, megastar, mr.devi, MS Raju, Music, nandi award, nuvvostanante nenoddantana, Pawan Kalyan, photographer, prabhas, recording, rerecording, sagar, satya murthy, satyanand, shankardada mbbs, shankardada zindabad, siddarth, singers, sri rama dasu, sukumar, sumangali, sye, trisha, Trivikram, varsham, vijayawada, watch, yuvakudu

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