Asha Bhosle, the Indian singer known as the voice of Bollywood, died in a Mumbai hospital on Sunday, April 12. Her son Anand Bhosle confirmed the news to Indian media. The cause of death was multiple organ failure after a cardiac arrest.
Raised in a musical family, Bhosle began her career singing in low-budget films. After breakthrough songs with O. P. Nayyar, she rose to international renown as a playback singer—the voice behind Bollywood compositions to which actors would lip-sync on screen. Her ineffable mix of classical virtuosity, coy flair, and occasionally risqué subject matter endeared her to a cross-generational fanbase that made her the toast of Bollywood for decades. Successive eras of film composers, from future husband R. D. Burman (who composed the vampy Bhosle classic “Dum Maro Dum”) to younger artists like A. R. Rahman, coveted Bhosle’s voice, before she won over international converts like Michael Stipe (who duetted with her on 2002’s “The Way You Dream”), Gorillaz (“The Shadowy Light” from The Mountain), and Britpop-era band Cornershop, whose hit “Brimful of Asha” is dedicated to Bhosle.
Her career spanned genres as well as musical eras, with sidelines in North Indian classical music, Hindu devotionals, folk, pop, and new age; her full catalog encompasses more than 12,000 songs, a feat recorded in the Guinness World Records in 2011 (when the tally stood at 11,000). She was twice nominated for Grammys—both times in world music categories, for albums with Ali Akbar Khan (Legacy) and Kronos Quartet (You’ve Stolen My Heart—Songs From R.D. Burman’s Bollywood).
After appearing on the Gorillaz track, which reflects on mortality, Bhosle said in a statement that, in the afterlife, she would “attain moksha (ultimate freedom) wherein I shall become one of the thousands of sounds floating all around us. If you put some of them together, they form a beautiful tune.” On Monday (April 13), thousands gathered to honor Bhosle at Mumbai’s Shivaji Park, in a ceremony that featured a gun salute and an impromptu crowd rendition of her classic song “Abhi Na Jao Chhod Kar.”
