'Embodiment of arrogance, lord of hypocrisy'; What is behind the criticism hurled at M Jayachandran?

The period between 2005 and 2015 was considered the heyday of musician M Jayachandran in the Malayalam industry. Jayachandran's songs had such a rustic charm, while he also helped many novice singers of the era to climb the ladder of recognition. After 2015, Jayachandran became choosy and signed for only a few movies. Despite fading out of the industry, the musician continues to be in the limelight through his appearances on television reality shows.

Now, director Alleppy Ashraf, through his YouTube channel, talked about Jayachandran’s career turn and the recent allegations that surfaced against him.

Ashraf:

“Many believe it was Jayachandran who introduced Bengali sensation Shreya Ghoshal to Malayalees. For this, he received a lot of criticism from Malayalam singers. However, in reality, it was a music director named Alphonse Joseph who brought Shreya Ghoshal to Malayalam. Shreya first rendered her voice in the film Big B, starring Mammootty. Shreya’s entry into Mollywood ended up as a headache for many homegrown singers. With this, a clique of such singers started lining up against Jayachandran, who continued to offer Shreya chances in his films.

In the meantime, he had a tiff with legendary singer P Jayachandran. The veteran singer didn’t follow any instructions put forward by Jayachandran and had his way with a song. This led to a change in the singer, and M Jayachandran himself decided to sing the song for the movie Nottam. The decision became an icing on the cake as M Jayachandran won the state award for the best singer that year for the same song.

However, personal feuds continued in Jayachandran’s life after his fallout with singer Chitra’s husband became news. Jayachandran’s naysayers used it as a weapon to attack him further.

Detractors label M Jayachandran the embodiment of arrogance and the lord of hypocrisy. Lyricist Rajeev Alunkal made some revelations at a memorial service for lyricist Beeyar Prasad, who passed away in February 2023. He said that M Jayachandran played a major role in killing BR Prasad’s career and alleged that the musician replaced Prasad in about 20 films. Vayalar Sarath Chandra Varma was also similarly removed from 12 films at Jayachandran’s insistence, said Alunkal.

M Jayachandran strongly denied these as he said it was normal to hear such allegations, as he would never compromise in his work.”