Artist Bio: Alka Yagnik
Date of Birth: March 20, 1966
Latest Movie: Yuvvraaj
Place of Birth: Kolkata, India
Mother’s Name: Shubha Yagnik, a famous singer
Profession: Singer
Alka Yagnik hails from a Gujarati family and has spent her childhood in Kolkata. Her parents were amazingly talented singers of their times. Since childhood, her mother dreamt of establishing Alka as leading singer in the music industry. She started singing bhajans at the age of six on radio stations of Kolkata. Initially she took singing as a hobby but with a strong parental support and her realization as a child prodigy, she opted to have a singing career for herself.
Alka Yagnik went to Mumbai to find opportunities to show her talent and grow higher in the music world. There she received first singing break in the movie ‘Paayal Ki Jhankar’ in 1979. Afterwards she received many playback singing offers among which most important was ‘Mere Angane Me’ in the year 1981. This track broke all the records and differentiated her from the list of other emerging singers. The turning point of her career came in the year 1988 when she sung ‘Ek Do Teen’ in ‘Tezaab’ success of which made her a star singer.
Alka Yagnik’s singing genre is not restricted to soft romantic numbers but is also extended to cheesy numbers. Alka has also offered her melodious voice to the Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Punjabi and Telugu movies.
Alka Yagnik has won many Film Fare Awards for her singing contribution to the Indian music Industry. She has received these awards from the year 1999-2001 for the best female playback singer in various award ceremonies. Additionally she has also judged many reality shows which include ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ and ‘Amul Star Voice of India’ for the small screen.
Unlike the typical psychology of the parents, Alka Yagnik does not wish or dream to choose the singing career for her daughter. In fact, she wants her daughter to make her career in direction for which she has made her join Subhash Ghai’s Direction School. Despite of a 29 year long music career and the availability of fresh voices in the industry, Alka has made her special position in the hearts of the listeners. This is why Alka is still preferred by the music directors and composers over the other singers in the industry. In this long time span she has given a number of melodious songs to the industry and has been timely honored for the same.