Alka Yagnik is an Indian playback singer whose noted career spanned three decades of Indian cinema thanks to her momager who helped her child become so great that Alka Yagnik’s songs are often featured in the BBC’s “Top 40 Bollywood Music”. Other accolades include winning a record seven films from 36 nominations for the Filmfare Award for Best Playback, as well as several other music awards such as being a two-time recipient of the National Film Award! 

Alka Yagnik: Calcutta Born Gujarati Icon Of Indian Music In Cinema! 

Who is Alka Yagnik?

Alka Yagnik is one of the most famous offscreen performers of Indian cinema (along with Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle ). Her career in Bollywood spans over three decades. 

Alka Yagnik is Kolkata born:

Alka Yagnik was born into a musical family. Her mother Shubha Yagnik (a Gujarati Hindu) was a singer of Indian classical music who resided in Kolkata when Alka Yagnik was born on March 20, 1966. 

She attended the Modern High School for girls. In 1972, at the age of 6, she began singing bhajans for Akashvani ( All India Radio ) in Kolkata and Akashvani started singing with a passion. 

Professional child singer:

At the age of 10, her mother brought her to Mumbai as a child singer. She was advised to wait until her voice matured, but her mother remained adamant. On the next visit, Alka got a letter of introduction from Raj Kapoor. Kapoor heard the girl and the well-known music Director Laxmikant sent it along with a letter. Impressed, Laxmikant gave two options: an immediate start as a dubbing artist or as a breakout singer. Her mother Shubha chose the second option for her daughter.

Alka Yagnik awards and achievements: 

Alka Yagnik is the record holder of the Filmfare Award for Best Female Voiceover (along with Asha Bhosle; both received the award seven times), two-time winner of the National Film Award, as well as several other music awards. She recorded soundtracks for more than 1000 Indian films and performed over 2000 songs in different languages ​​of India. 

Career highlights and amazing songs:

In 1980 she performed her first song “Thirkat Ang” for the film Payal Ki Jhankaar.

This was followed by the film The Orphan (1981) with the song “Mere Angane Mein” and the film Our Daughter-in-Law Alka (1982). 

The first big success came to the singer in 1988 with the song “Ek Do Teen” from the film Burning Passion (1988), which earned her her first Filmfare Award for Best Female Voiceover. Most interestingly, She later said that when she was recording this song, she had a high temperature 

Career and creativity Alka Yagnik sang in many languages ​​including Hindi, Urdu, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Awadhi, Oriya, Assamese, Manipuri, Nepali, Rajasthani, Bengali , Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Marathi, Malayalam and English. Alka Yagnik was the lead singer of the tandem of composers Nadeem Saifi and Shravan Rathod and more commonly referred to as Nadeem and Shrawan) throughout their career. 

The singer also performed songs to the music of such authors as the tandems of composers Kalyanji and Anandji, Laxmikant and Pyarelal, Jatin and Lalit Pandita, Anand and Milind, composers like Bappi Lahiri, A. R. Rahman, R. D. Burman, Rajesh Roshan, Anu Malik, Ismail Darbar, Himesh Rashammiya, Adesh Srivastava, and many others. 

In addition to soloing, Alka Yagnik has performed and recorded many duets with singer Udit Narayan, and has also collaborated with singers such as Kumar Sanu, Sukhwinder Singh, Sonu Nigam, Vinod Rathod, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Shreya Ghoshal, Shaan, and others.