Shabad Kirtan (or just “Kirtan”) is comparable to hymn singing in Christianity.
The Kirtan4u App has been designed to give the global Sikh community the opportunity to discover live kirtan singing near them. Probably no other religion shows a closer relationship between music and its holy scriptures than does Sikhism.
The Sikh religion today has a following of over 20 million people worldwide and there are over a thousand performers singing kirtan at Sikh temples (aka Gurdwaras) all over the world. Some of these performers are more renowned than others and are well known amongst the global Sikh community. These performers frequently travel all over the world singing Shabad Kirtan.
Shabad Kirtan has been an integral part of Sikh worship from the very beginning. Hymn-singing was in fact the earliest form of devotion for the Sikhs. Shabad Kirtan has since been appropriated into the regular Gurdwara service.
Kirtan4u therefore aims to bring together the performers and congregation by being the ultimate source for Sikh community to discover all “live” Kirtan events near to them and giving the congregation the opportunity of spiritual bliss and fulfilment through a real-life experience and not from a recording.
It is important to note that Kirtan4u is purely an informational App. It does not organise any Kirtan events but instead endeavours to work closely with organisers and performers to ensure the best-known information is available for the Sikh community to attend a live event.
Kirtan4u is a non-profit organisation with no affiliation to any Gurdwara, community, political party, institution or person(s) and is wholly maintained by a committed team of volunteers, funded solely through generous donations.
Some of the static content on the App is available to all users without the need for registering. However, to access the “Live Events” worldwide heatmap then the user is required to complete a simple process to create an account.
Upon registration, general users just have to provide a valid email address and their country of residence. No other information is required. Email address needs to be a validated by entering an OTP code to the email provided.
Performers have a separate registration process whereby their credentials (such as stage name and mobile contact number) are validated by the Kirtan 4u admin team. Upon approval the performers (unlike general users) can add/edit/delete events they have created within the App.
As with most mobile App’s they have ongoing fixed costs and to help cover these costs Kirtan4u does reach out for donations (via Stripe).