Prahlad Singh Tipaniya is an Indian folk singer who performs Kabir bhajans in the Malwi folk stlye from Madhya Pradesh.
He first heard the tamboura, a 5-string plucked instrument, in 1978, and was captivated. He was 24 years old then, a village school teacher and singing was not an inherited family tradition.
However, this became a defining moment for the way his life was going to unfold. For it was through the tamboura, that Prahladji encountered the world of Kabir. The words of this 15th-century saint-poet are sung in village after village by scores of bhajan mandlis who have kept alive an unbroken oral tradition of singing KabirтАЩs poetry for over 600 years.
Prahladji entered this world of all-night bhajan sessions as a learner. Two and a half decades later, he is a household name, his audiocassettes can be heard in home after home, and most will acknowledge him as the man who has deeply impacted and contributed to a resurgence of oral traditions of Kabir singing in India.