A Tribute to Indian Singer Lata Mangeshkar with Bollywood Samples & Originals

Born in 1929, Lata Mangeshkar’s career spanned eight decades. She has worked with nearly every Bollywood actor, screenwriter, director, and musician. No wonder she’s hailed as the voice of Bollywood, with a rich catalog of an estimate of over 15.000 songs across genres and in twenty different Indian languages.

Javed Akhtar, a leading Bollywood screenwriter, described her melodic voice as "pure and clear as the finest pearl of crystal.” Hip-hop producers also know this. Take “Lil Fade” by Vince Staples, for example. Producer Kenny Beats used Tracklib to sample Mangeshkar’s voice from “Sanata Theme,” taken from the soundtrack of 1981 horror movie Sanata. Or, more famously, how Swedish production duo Bloodshy & Avant flipped "Tere Mere Beech Mein" for Britney Spears’ mega-hit “Toxic.”

Let Lata Mangeshkar's evergreen voice guide you into the rich world of Indian music and Bollywood soundtracks. There’s more than enough to be found in her solo works; she was once “the most recorded artist in history" according to Guinness World Records. Since 2016, Indian playback singer P. Susheela holds that record. Or discover new artists, also through her countless collaborations and duets with other playback singers and composers. Take note and dig in: R. D. Burman, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Mohammed Rafi, and her very own sister, who also happens to be an Indian icon: Asha Boshle.