Devanesan Chokkalingam, popularly known as Deva, was an Indian film composer and singer. He had composed songs and provided background music for Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada films in a career spanning about 35 years. Many know his gaana songs, written mostly using Madras Tamil. He was known as the "Father of Gaana Genre" in the Tamil film industry. Deva had composed music for many films within a very short period. He had debuted as a film music director in the film Mattukara Mannaru in 1986. In the intervening years he had composed music for a total of more than 400 films.