Vinod Rathod

Vinod Rathod was born in Mumbai in 1962 into one of Indian music's great families. His father was the classical singer Pandit Chaturbhuj Rathod, and his brothers are the ghazal and playback singer Roop Kumar Rathod and Shravan of the composing duo Nadeem–Shravan. He grew up inside the music.

His break came in 1986, when composer Usha Khanna heard his voice on a demo cassette and called him in to record a qawwali. He sang more than forty songs for her before Shiv–Hari brought him into the big league with Yash Chopra's Vijay in 1988, singing alongside Lata Mangeshkar.

Then came 1992 and 1993 — Deewana, Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja, Khalnayak, Baazigar — and for the rest of the decade his was one of the most in-demand voices in Hindi cinema, working with Laxmikant–Pyarelal, Anu Malik, Nadeem–Shravan and Ismail Darbar. A second wave followed with Dholi Taro Dhol Baje, Chalak Chalak and M Bole Toh.

He has recorded more than 3,500 songs across Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Rajasthani, Bhojpuri, Nepali and more, and has twice been nominated for a Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer. What sets his voice apart is the classical training underneath it — the reason he can carry both a stadium-sized dance number and a ghazal in the same evening.