| Iraj Weerarathne | |||||||
| Birth Date: | 21 February 1981 | ||||||
| Birth Place: | Colombo, Sri Lanka | ||||||
| Nationality: | Sri Lankan | ||||||
| Education: | Royal College, Colombo, Sri Lanka | ||||||
| Alma Mater: | Northumbria University, UK | ||||||
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Iraj Weeraratne (born 21 February 1981) is a Sinhalese R&B and hip hop artist, music producer,DJ and entrepreneur. Weeraratne had a television show on Derana TV called "Iraj Show". He is known as a prominent hip-hop and RnB artist in Sri Lanka. He was the first person to introduce Sinhala rap as well as Tamil rap to Sri Lanka in 2004.[1]
His first South Indian composition together with Vijay Anthony featured in the 2009 Tamil film, Vettaikaaran, starring Kollywood star Vijay and was ranked number one in the Chennai Charts.[2]
He won the best keyboardist title which was awarded by Guildhall Music School at the age of 16. He later teamed up with his schoolmates Ranidu Lankage and Yauwana Wigneswaran to form a band titled ‘’Zealots’’ while still studying at the Royal College, Colombo.[3] He owns the Bongohd firm in Bangladesh. In August 2020, he was appointed as the board member of National Youth Service Council by Namal Rajapaksa and he was supposed to serve in the relevant position for a period of three years.[4] However, a year later after his appointment he resigned from the position citing unavoidable poor work-related commitments.[5] [6] Iraj Weerarathne was involved in Gotabaya Rajapaksa's presidential campaign in Sri Lanka.[7] He actively supported for Rajapaksa during the 2019 Sri Lankan presidential election. Iraj's involvement included creating promotional music videos and songs in support of Rajapaksa's campaign.[8] These musical contributions aimed to garner support and create enthusiasm among the public for Rajapaksa's candidacy.[9]