Dhee

Dheekshitha Venkadeshan (born 26 June 1998), known professionally as Dhee, is an Indian Australian playback singer who has worked in Tamil cinema. She has sung songs in her stepfather Santhosh Narayanan's albums and has garnered a nomination at the Filmfare Awards for Best Singer. She is known for her distinctive alto voice.

Career

Dhee was born on 27 June 1998 to Indian classical singer, Meenakshi Iyer, who later remarried music composer Santhosh Narayanan. Dhee has an older brother, Sudheekshanan. Dhee began her playback singing career by performing songs in two of Santhosh Narayanan albums, Pizza II: Villa (2013) and Cuckoo (2014), during breaks from her education. Dhee made a breakthrough by singing "Naan Nee" from Pa. Ranjith's Madras (2014) alongside Shakthisree Gopalan. Her work on the song saw the pair garner nominations for Best Female Singer at the Filmfare Awards and the Vijay Awards.

Dheekshitha received critical acclaim for her work in Sudha Kongara Prasad's sports drama film, Irudhi Suttru (2016). Being used as the lead singer for Ritika Singh's North Madras-based boxer character in the film, Dhee recorded two solo songs titled "Ey Sandakaara" and "Usuru Narumbuley". Behindwoods.com stated that the first song was "another classic Santhosh number that gets your attention in no time", while noting the "pathos song by Dhee is a revelation sorts" about the latter.

Dhee later worked with Santhosh Narayanan in critically acclaimed albums including Kaala (2018) and Vada Chennai (2018), before collaborating with Yuvan Shankar Raja for the song "Rowdy Baby" in Maari 2 (2018). Singing alongside Dhanush, the film garnered popularity soon after its release. The song raked in about 910 million plus views on YouTube making it the highest viewed Tamil music videos, and one of the most-viewed Indian videos of all time.

Discography