Kumar Sanu (born as Kedarnath Bhattacharya; 20 October 1957 ) is an Indian playback singer who gained recognition in Hindi cinema during the 1990s and early 2000s. He is known for his melodious voice and prolific output, recording songs in multiple languages including Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bhojpuri and Odia. Sanu gained widespread recognition with the soundtrack of Aashiqui (1990), which featured him in nearly all of the male solo songs and established him as a leading playback singer of that period. He won the Filmfare Awards for Best Male Playback Singer for five consecutive years from 1990 to 1995, for films including Aashiqui (1990), Saajan (1991), Deewana (1992), Baazigar (1993) and 1942: A Love Story (1994). In 1993, Sanu entered the Guinness World Records for recording 28 songs in a single day. Several of his songs were included in the BBC "Top 40 Bollywood soundtracks of all time". He has also appeared as a mentor and judge on television music reality shows. In recognition of his contributions to Indian music, Sanu was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2009.
