Sunday, October 6, 2013
ALKA YAGNIK (born 20 March 1966 in Kolkata, West Bengal,
India) is amongst the best-known playback singers of Hindi cinema
with a career spanning three decades. She is a record seven-time winner
from a record of 35 nominations of the Filmfare Award for Best Female
Playback Singer, a two-time recipient of the National Film Award as
well as several other music awards listed below. Further, as many as 20 of her
tracks feature in BBC's "Top 40 Bollywood Soundtracks of all time"
review.
Alka Yagnik was
born in Kolkata on 20 March 1966 in a Brahmin family. Her
mother Shubha Yagnik was a singer of Indian classical music. She received
her school education from Modern High School for Girls. In 1972 at the age
of 6, she started singing for Akashvani (All India Radio), Calcutta. At
age 10, her mother brought her to Mumbai as a child singer. She was
advised to wait until her voice matured, but her mother remained determined. On
a subsequent visit, Alka got a letter of introduction to Raj Kapoor from
his Kolkata distributor. Kapoor heard the girl and sent her with a letter to
noted music director Laxmikant. Impressed, Laxmikant gave her two
alternatives – an immediate start as a dubbing artist or a later break as a
singer;they settled for the latter.
Alka Yagnik is classically trained. She began singing bhajans for
Akashvani (All India Radio), Calcutta. at the age of six. Her first song
was for the film Payal Ki Jhankaar in (1980), followed byLaawaris (1981)
with the song "Mere Angane Mein", followed by the film Hamari
Bahu Alka (1982). She got her big break with the song "Ek Do
Teen" from the film Tezaab (1988). The song won her
a Filmfare Best Female Playback Award.
She has sung in many languages other than Hindi,
including Gujarati, Oriya, Assamese, Manipuri, Nepali, Rajasthani, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, English and Malayalam.
She has worked with Indian composers such as Kalyanji-Anandji, Rahul
Dev Burman, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Rajesh Roshan, Nadeem-Shravan, Jatin
Lalit, Anu Malik, A. R. Rahman, Anand-Milind,Himesh Reshammiya, Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy, Ismail
Darbar, Aadesh Shrivastava, Viju Shah, M. M. Keeravani, Sajid-Wajid, Bappi
Lahiri, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sandesh Shandilya and many
others.
She has sung maximum duets with Udit Narayan & Kumar
Sanu. She has also sung many duets with Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Vinod
Rathod, Sonu Nigam & Shaan.
She has also sung in many albums such as "Tum Yaad
Aaye", as well as "Tum Aaye" and "Shairana" in which
she worked in close collaboration with award-winning lyricist Javed Akhtar and
singer Hariharan. She has also rendered the Hanuman Chalisa and various
devotional songs.
Alka shares the title with Asha Bhosle for the greatest
number of Filmfare Awards won (7) by a single female playback
singer. Alka has also been the judge of various Sa Re Ga Ma Pa
Challenge shows, and Star Voice of India, both singing
competition shows, in which children or adults of various age groups compete
with one another to win the award for best vocals. In addition to this, her
song "Chamma Chamma" from China Gate was featured in
the song "Hindi Sad Diamonds" from the soundtrack of the film Moulin
Rouge!. She has also been performing in live concerts around the world.
In 2012 she along with Sonu Nigam sang a song 'Shiksha
Ka Suraj' as part of National Literacy Mission of India for which she was
felicitated by Union Minister For Human Resource DevelopmentKapil Sibal. Further
in 2012, on occasion of 100 years of Hindi Cinema, her song "Taal Se Taal
Mila" from the movie Taal was voted as the best song of
the century in a poll conducted by DesiMartini, Hindustan Times and Fever
104. Also her song "Choli Ke Peeche" from the movie Khalnayak was
voted as the hottest song of the century in a poll conducted by Sanona. [
She has also been involved in various projects pertaining to
empowerment of the girl child.
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