Om Bikram Bista, King of Nepali Pop

Known as the King of Pop in Nepal, Om Bikram Bista has given numerous pop songs for more than three decades at a time when Nepali music scenario was so dominated by the traditional style. He added new dimension to the Nepali music.



Coming from a literary environment, he got interested in music as his parents as well as siblings had a penchant for music. He considers music as his best friend that always gave him a companion throughout his life. For him, music is what moon and flower is to others. During his more than three decade long career in Nepali music industry, he has seen many changes occur. Music, back then, used to be a passion and was not financially rewarding as it is today. Also, the singers were more practiced and had greater love for music unlike present situation. However, the technology (he calls it copy and paste) has made it easy for anyone to sing.

om bikram bista

It definitely was not easy for him to get to the place where he is now, behind the title ‘King of Pop’ there is a lot of struggles he had to go through. He started singing pop songs during the time when traditional music was deep rooted in Nepali society. He was called iconoclast, was looked upon with contempt and scorn by the traditionalist of the time and his music was distorted, however, as the time passed by, people began to understand and appreciate his music. He feels satisfied when he finds the pop music getting more popularity and the invention of new recording technologies, however, the bizarre looks of the singers and their focus on unusual sounding pronunciation rather than the quality of singing disappoints him.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHfqiApVjxs[/youtube] One of his super hit songs Ma Mauntama was originally written and composed by Robert Subba. However, as the lyrics were incomplete, Puru Thapa completed it and he had loved it the moment he listened to it for the first time. Later, he and Subarna Limbu improvised it and then recorded it which became one of the most popular songs of Nepali music industry. Among the pop singers of new generation, he likes Nabin K Bhattarai, Sugam Pokhrel, Sabin Rai, Deepak Bajracharya, Hemanta Rana and Shreya Sotang. If given a chance to change three things in music industry, he would like to standardize the composition lyrics and singing, elimination of piracy and the structuring of the collection and distribution of royalties to be fair and effective.

He has not only performed in Nepal but has also gone to abroad many times for musical performance. The singer of popular songs like Ma Maunta ma and Yaad Gara T Din Haru, Om Bikram Bista has received both, national as well as international awards including prestigious awards like Chinnalata Puraskar from Late King Mahendra, 2002 Millennium award from late king Dipendra and Golden Kite Award in Malaysia.