Born On: November 7, 1980
Born In: Chennai, near Nellore, Andhra Pradesh
Nationality: Indian
 
Karthik (born November 7, 1980 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu is an Indian playback singer of the Tamil film industry.
Karthik had a good interest in music early in his life and learnt Carnatic music during his school days. Later on he started singing for his college band and regularly participated in IIT Madras Fest ‘Sarang’.
Being an ardent fan of A. R. Rahman, Karthik always dreamt of meeting the musical great. After searching a lot of avenues, he happened to find out that one of his close friend's cousin was singer Srinivas, who sang many songs for Rahman. During their brief chat, Srinivas asked Karthik to sing a few lines, and was impressed by his voice and asked him to look at singing more seriously. Taking cue, Karthik resumed his singing lessons.
After nearly a year since his meeting with Srinivas, Karthik received a call one night from him. Apparently Rahman needed a fresh voices for backing vocalists for a song from Pukar and Srinivas could not get in touch with one of the singers and then he remembered Karthik and tried to get in touch with him. Ironically Karthik was out with his friends and was not reachable for quite some time. As luck would have it, he managed to get the information just in time and rushed to the recording studio.
Having spent over a year being a backing vocalist, Karthik got his break during the re-recording of One 2 Ka 4. For the background score of one of the scenes in the movie, A. R. Rahman wanted a high-pitched alap and Karthik along with other chorus singers gave a shot at it. Rahman impressed with the voice, asked him to stay back for the recording. Karthik grabbed the opportunity with both hands and performed, with Rahman giving him pointers and walking through the alap. He struck gold with this session and soon Rahman asked him to perform for a song Nendhukittaen from the film Star.
Karthik has sung a number of songs for many popular music directors, including A. R. Rahman, Ilayaraaja, Yuvan Shankar Raja and Harris Jeyaraj. Karthik has sung songs in several languages - Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada. Ennaku Oru Girlfriend from the Tamil movie Boys was one of his huge hits as was Oru Maalai from the 2005 film Ghajini. His recent track in 2008, the gaana inspired "Ava Enna" from the 2009 film Vaaranam Aayiram has been well received. His Song in 'Ghajini'(2009)"Behka" is Hit track all over the world.
Karthik performed with Bennet Roland at Festember 08, the annual cultural fest of NIT Trichy and Ragam 08, the annual cultural fest of the National Institute of Technology Calicut, on 28 March 2008.Karthik has sung at the recent Indian Premier League Twenty 20 cricket events held in Chennai. Karthik with Bennet performed at Nova 9, the ninth foundation week celebration of UST Global in Trivandrum on August 22 2008. He married Ambika on July 12, 2006 in Tirupathi.

Many awards have come his way already in his short career, probably one of the youngest playback singers to receive so many awards in such a short span in the current scenario.

• 2005 - Filmfare Best Male Playback Award (Tamil) - Oru Maalai (Ghajini)
• 2007 - Filmfare Best Male Playback Award (Telugu) - Arey Rey (Happy Days)
• 2007 - Nandi Award for Best Male Playback Singer - Oh, My Friend (Happy Days)
• 2008 - CineMAA Best Male Playback Award - Happy Days (no particular song) [2]
• 2008 - Filmfare Best Male Playback Award (Telugu)- Nijangaa Nenenaa (Kotha Bangaru Lokam)