File:Mohammed_Rafi_2016_postcard_of_India_crop-flip.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
Mohammed Rafi
Sign in to saveAlso known as Mohd Rafi, Muhammed Rafi, Mohammad Rafi, Muhammad Rafi, Mohd. Rafi, Rafi
Indian playback singer (1924–1980)
OverviewAI-generated
Mohammed Rafi was an Indian singer, musician, composer, and film actor whose career spanned from 1941 to 1980. Born in Kotla Sultan Singh, Punjab, British India, he died in Mumbai in 1980 due to a myocardial infarction. He was a citizen of the British Raj, India, and the Dominion of India. Rafi practiced Sunni Islam and was a native Punjabi speaker who also spoke Urdu, Telugu, and Kannada.
His musical work encompassed Indian classical music, filmi music, Carnatic music, and ghazal. He performed on the reed organ and voice, and wrote in Urdu and Punjabi. Rafi received the National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer and the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer. He had seven children.
Synthesized by Vinony from 44 facts across 9 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, Open Library, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, Europeana Sparql, TMDb, Firecrawl, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Film & TV
Kotla Sultan Singh, Punjab, British India
Mohammed Rafi (24 December 1924 – 31 July 1980) was an Indian playback singer and one of the most popular singers of the Hindi film industry. Rafi was notable for his voice and versatility; his songs ranged from classical numbers to patriotic songs, sad lamentations to highly romantic numbers, qawwalis to ghazals and bhajans. He was known for his ability to mould his voice to the persona of the…
Known for
- Final Liberation — Background singer2024
- Dastaan-E-Rafi — Self - Singer(archive footage)2016
- Jugnu1947
via TMDB
Music · MusicBrainz
- Type
- Person
- Gender
- Male
- Country
- India
- Active from
- 1924
- Active to
- 1980
Discography
via MusicBrainz · CC0
Listeners · Last.fm
- Listeners
- 133,434
- Total plays
- 1,768,162
Tags
Mohammed Rafi (Urdu: محمد رفیع, Hindi: मोहम्मद रफ़ी; 24 December 1924 – 31 July 1980), was an Indian playback singer whose career spanned four decades. He won a National Award and 6 Filmfare Awards. In 1967, he was honoured with the Padma Shri by the Government of India. In a career spanning about 40 years, Rafi sang over 26,000 film songs. His songs ranged from classical numbers to patriotic songs, sad lamentations to highly romantic numbers <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Mohammed+Rafi">Re
Key facts
- Born
- ( 1924-12-24 ) 24 December 1924, Kotla Sultan Singh , Punjab , British India , (present-day Punjab , India)
- Died
- 31 July 1980 (1980-07-31) (aged 55), Bombay , Maharashtra , India
- Occupation
- Playback singer
- Years active
- 1944–1980
- Spouses
- Bashira Bibi ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1938 – 1942 ) Biliquis Bano ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1945 )
- Awards
- Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer (6 times) BFJA Best Male Playback Award National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer (1 time)
- Honours
- Padma Shri (1967)
- Genres
- Filmi Bhajans Ghazals Qawwali Shabad Na'at Classical Nazrul Geeti Comedy Music
- Instrument
- Vocals
via Wikipedia infobox
Official website
Mohammed Rafi - Rafians tribute to a true Maestro Mohammed Rafi
Rafians tribute to a true Maestro
mohdrafi.com →Link to the official site · 11,392 chars · not written by Vinony
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Muhammad
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Dominion of India
- Place of death
- Mumbai
- Occupation
- playback singer
- Languages spoken
- creole
- Native language
- Punjabi
- Religion
- Sunni Islam
- Genre
- Thumri
- Instrument
- voice
- Official website
- www.mohdrafi.com
- Image
- Mohammed Rafi 2016 postcard of India crop-flip.jpg
- Number of children
- 7
Show 11 more facts
- date of birth
- 1924-12-24
- date of death
- 1980-07-31
- cause of death
- myocardial infarction
- manner of death
- natural causes
- Commons category
- Mohammed Rafi
- name in native language
- محمد رفیع
- start of work period
- 1941-00-00
- end of work period
- 1980-00-00
- writing language
- Punjabi
- short name
- Mohd.
- on focus list of Wikimedia project
- Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
Sources (8)
via Wikidata · CC0
Works in European collections
1 object attributed to Mohammed Rafi, held across European museums, libraries & archives · via Europeana
~26 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Mohammed Rafi (24 December 1924 – 31 July 1980) was an Indian playback singer. He is considered to have been one of the greatest and most influential singers of the Indian subcontinent. Rafi was notable for his versatility and range of voice; his songs varied from fast, peppy numbers to patriotic songs, sad numbers to highly romantic songs, qawwalis to ghazals and bhajans to classical songs. He was known for his ability to mould his voice to the persona and style of the actor lip-syncing the song on screen in the movie. He received six Filmfare Awards and one National Film Award in India. In 1967, the Government of India honored him with the fourth highest civilian award, the Padma Shri. In 2001, Rafi was honoured with the "Best Singer of the Millennium" title by Hero Honda and Stardust magazine. In 2013, Rafi was voted for the Greatest Voice in Hindi Cinema in a CNN-IBN poll.
He recorded songs for over a thousand Hindi films and in many Indian languages as well as some foreign languages, though primarily in Urdu and Punjabi, over which he had a strong command. He recorded as many as 7,000 songs throughout his career, spanning several Indian languages such as Konkani, Assamese, Bhojpuri, Odia, Bengali, Marathi, Sindhi, Kannada, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Magahi, Maithili, and many more. Apart from these, he also sang in some foreign languages, including English, Persian, Arabic, Sinhala, Mauritian Creole, and Dutch.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Mohammed Rafi” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.