ප්රනාන්දු M S
50 songs performed · 1 composition · 1 lyric written
M. S. Fernando (also written MS Fernando or M.S. Fernando), එම්. එස්. ප්රනාන්දු, born Mahagamage Samson Fernando, was a Sri Lankan singer who did more than anyone of his generation to make baila the everyday party music of the island. Honoured as the “Baila Chakravarthi” (baila emperor), he is the voice behind decades of dance-floor staples, from “Galkisse Hotale” to “Mama Taxi Karaya”.
Fernando was born on 4 March 1936 in Moratuwa, then British Ceylon, a coastal town long associated with baila and chorus-baila traditions. He grew up in a large family and was schooled locally before turning to performance. His younger brother, Walter Fernando, also became a well-known baila singer, keeping the family name on stage well after M. S. Fernando’s own career took off.
M. S. Fernando built his reputation through stage shows, recordings, and a heavy schedule of film playback work. One of his early hits, Sili Siliye Nawa Suwandak, dates from the mid-1960s, and through the 1970s he became one of the most-recorded voices in Sinhala popular music. He lent his singing to roughly 150 films and appeared on screen in more than two dozen, which spread his songs far beyond the records into cinema halls across the country.
What set MS Fernando apart was how he localised baila, a rhythm with Portuguese colonial roots, into something unmistakably Sri Lankan: cheeky, fast, and built for dancing. He was reported to sing in several languages, and his comic, story-telling numbers about taxi drivers, hotels, and migrant workers became part of the popular vocabulary.
Many of his best-loved recordings are tongue-in-cheek slices of ordinary life. Galkisse Hotale and Mama Taxi Karaya remain baila standards, while Mama Enne Dubai captured the Gulf-migration era with a wink. He also recorded gentler romantic numbers, including Nelum Male Pethi Kadala, a duet with the singer Angeline Gunathilaka, and E Ran Kanda Pem Hada Gum Didi.
M. S. Fernando died on 9 April 1994 in Colombo, after a career that won him scores of awards and trophies in baila competitions. His songs are still played at weddings, parties, and festivals, and the diaspora keeps them alive far from home. For many listeners, M.S. Fernando is simply the sound of celebration, which is why his catalogue endures decades after his death.
Every Sinhala lyric, composition, and song credit by MS Fernando.