Dil-E-Nadan

Dil-E-Nada is a decades-old band which has had a rotating membership over the years. Sangeeta D'Songstar of Chutneymusic dot com provides a brief hstory of the band: "Dil e nadan was formed in 1957 by the late Usaf Khan and Ramnarine Moonilal. Dil e nadan won the Prime Minister’s Trophy for best indian orchestration which was judged by the late great Mohammed Rafi 1962. The band enjoyed a lot of success in the years to follow and dominated the local indian industry. In the 80’s the band toured mainly Canada,Guyana and Suriname and boasted the best local singers the country had at the time. (Nazimool and Ruby, Ras Nancoo). In the mid 80’s Ramnarine’s two sons Rennie and Raymond joined the group as percussionists then moving on to trumpets, and then Guitars and Keyboards. With the push from then manager Haseeb Majid ,Raymond started his career as a lead singer. He entered the national duet singing competition with Swarsati Maraj in 1989 and won first place. This proved to be the start of the rise of the Indian Culture among the youths in Trinidad and Tobago. The next year (1990) Raymond entered Mastana Bahar where he placed Second in the grand finals (a result which still has unanswered questions). Rennie the eldest of the brothers also sang in the finals.That same year the youngest of the brothers Richard joined the band as a Tabla and Dholak player. The band did their first show in New York in 1993 at York College in Queens. (the show was sold out 1 week in advance) Then in 1996 the band was signed to Soca Paradise (Ramesh Singh) and released there first C.D. People’s Choice. The success seemed to have just started as the band became the first band to tour Holland and Spain in 1997. In 1999 Richard became the youngest manager in Trinidad at only 19. Soon after dil e nadan became the first chutney group to perform at the world renowned Brass Festival and Youth fest. Dil e nadan holds the record for the most awards at the 103fm awards show (24).The band is currently sponsored by Bmobile and Stag. Dil e nadan recently signed a Five year deal in Holland with Bollywood LTD for performances in Europe."