Sanjaya Malakar Since the escalating popularity of Sanjaya Malakar on the 2007 sixth season of American Idol, it had to beg the question, was it intended to be just a singing contest or was it a platform for the nation to create it’s next overall celebrity. This was born out by Simon Cowell’s remarks after the April 17th show when he was quoted as saying, "I know this has been funny for a while, but based on the fact that we are supposed to be finding the next American Idol, Malakar's performance was hideous." Sanjaya Malakar was born in Seattle, Washington, on September 10th 1989 to a Bengali father and an Italian American mother. His parents first separated when Sanjaya was one year old and then divorced when he was three. Malakar has a sister, Shayamail, who is two years his senior and also shares his love of music. Sanjaya spent his middle school years at Seattle Waldorf School and Northshore Junior High. For his freshman year he attended Shorecrest High School. Later Malakar transferred to Todd Beamer High School. The school’s name was dedicated to a passenger, Todd Beamer, who was on flight 93 on September 11th 2001 and who helped over come the hijackers of the fated airline and brought it down in a field outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The school is a recipient of a $675,000 grant from Bill Gates and his wife Belinda.
After completing his sophomore year Sanjaya left the school to focus on his first love, music. It was then that he decided to compete for American Idol, at the Seattle auditions, in front of the judges, Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson. Both Sanjaya and his sister, Shayamail auditioned and both were invited back for the next round in Hollywood, although that was as far as his sister’s American Idol career went. She was not invited back to the next round, while her brother, Sanjaya was. With his almost, pre-plastic surgery Michael Jackson cute looks, at his first audition on September 19th 2006, citing Stevie Wonder as his idol, Sanjaya sang Wonder’s signature song, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”. He continued his performances throughout the series with, Diana Ross’s ‘Aint No Mountain High Enough”, “Cheek to Cheek” for which he was coached by Tony Bennett and "Bésame Mucho" when he was given advice by Jennifer Lopez in the Latin theme section of the contest. Much of his formative years were spent in the Seattle area where he sang with a gospel choir and he has also lived in Hawaii where he performed with the children’s theater. Along with his, questionable, vocal abilities Malakar has exhibited a flamboyant side to his personality with his unusual hair styles and head dresses. On March 27th 2007 Malakar performed on stage wearing a fauxhawk made of several ponytails but during the song he forgot some of the words to No Doubt’s Bathwater.
Along with his fauxhawk pony tail Malakar has performed at various times wearing, a white suite, donning a slick hairstyle, and dancing with Paula Abdul, and in another performance he wore a red bandana with a crazy frizzed-up hair do. Since the “fauxhawk” performance he has been satirized on the Saturday Night Live show by Andy Samberg and Dan Aykroyd. Sanjaya has also earned the name “Manjyna” on the popular New York syndicated talk radio show hosted by Leslie Gold, known as The Radio Chick. If Malakar wins American Idol in 2007 he will follow in the footsteps of Taylor Hicks, Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia Barrino and Carrie Underwood. Simon announced that, although he was contractually bound to return to the show in the next season, he would not participate in it if Malakar were to win in 2007. While Simon looks for real star quality it appears that Malakar is trying to lower the tone of the show and garnering publicity and votes based mainly on his flamboyant appearance. Malakar could have, single handedly, with his antics and the manipulated publicity by such “shock jocks” as Howard Stern, caused the demise of the most popular television show to hit America in years. On April 17th 2007 Sanjaya was voted off the American Idol show. ABB |
