Shilpa Rao Female Playback Singer of India

Shilpa Rao

Place of Birth: Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India
Also known as :Birth name - Apeksha Rao
Genre: Bollywood
Language: Hindi

Biography

This up-and-coming singer who has lent her voice to songs such as ‘Mudhi-Mudhi Ittefaq Se’ (Paa), and ‘Khuda Jaane’ (Bachna Ae Haseeno) is definitely on the roll.

Showered with glowing reviews for her work on various soundtracks, Shilpa Rao’s talent spans a vast range of genres. Right from the ghazal track 'Sehra' in the Tusshar Kappor-starrer Aggar, to the upbeat, qawwali flavoured 'Saiyyan Re' from Salaam-E-Ishq, where she joins Shankar Mahadevan or the track, 'Javeda Zindagi' from the movie Anwar, where Shilpa duets with Kshitij together with guitar and tabla fusion to create a song that’s highly emotive and profound in meaning.

It was her father, S.V. Rao, who initiated Shilpa into the world of music. A post-graduate in music, he gave Shilpa the grounding needed to be a fine singer. But it was Hariharan, however, who discovered the innate potential in her and encouraged her to fine tune her skills. And fine tune her skills she did under Ghulam Mustafa Khan.

Having moved to Mumbai, Shilpa started off her career doing jingles for advertisements. Her dream debut into the music industry began with Shanker-Ehsaan-Loy’s peppy ‘Saiyan Re’ (Salaam-E-Ishq). The singer then went on to do songs for Mithoon Sharma (‘Tose Naina Lage,’ ‘Woh Ajnabi’ and ‘Nach Le’), Piyush Kanojia (‘Raghupati Raghav’ and ‘Vaishav Jan’) and Raghav Sachar (‘Gupchup’).

Debut Year 2005

Discography

2010 - Horn Ok Pleassss

2009 - Paa

2009 - Aagey Se Right

2009 - Sikandar

2009 - Gulaal

2009 - Dev D

2008 - Hijack

2008 - Bachna Ae Haseeno

2008 - Good Luck

2008 - Contract

2008 - Aamir

2008 - One Two Three

2007 - Aggar

2007 - The Train

2007 - Panga Naa Lo

2007 - Salaam-E-Ishq

2005 - Ek Ajnabee

Awards

Star Screen Awards

2008 - Best Female Playback Singer - 'Khuda Jaane - Bachna Ae Haseeno

Trivia/ Quotes

Trivia

An article published in the Hindustan Times in 2009 described her as one of the most prominent singers in the "wave" of "young, little-known singers" then sweeping through Bollywood.

'Ek Lau' from the film Aamir is one of her famous songs. This song relates a lot to the Mumbai Terror attacks on 26/11 and was the theme song on NDTV during the coverage of the Mumbai Carnage.