Though many of his fans will drift back to the ’90s when they hear Abhijeet Bhattacharya’s emotionally stirring voice, the playback singer’s body of work spans far more than one all-conquering decade. Inspired by the great Kishore Kumar, a young Bhattacharya followed in his idol’s footsteps by moving from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh to Mumbai in the early ’80s to pursue a career in Bollywood music. He initially struggled and considered giving up but a last-minute offer from R.D. Burman—one of the industry’s most revered musical directors—to sing alongside none other than Kishore Da himself was a sure sign that his musical promise was justified. Under the tutelage of figures such as Burman, Bhattacharya finally picked up regular playback singing work. But it wasn’t until he performed tracks like “Chandni Raat Hai” and “Ek Chanchal Shokh Haseena” on 1990 Hindi blockbuster Baaghi that his dynamic voice began to turn heads by the millions. In the following years the artist rose up the Bollywood ranks, earning award nominations along the way. In 1998, he won the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer for “Main Koi Aisa Geet Gaoon”, which lit up 1997 romcom Yes Boss. Known to most as simply Abhijeet, he became the sweet voice of Sunil Shetty, Anil Kapoor, Shah Rukh Khan and more, never letting their visual presence overshadow the character conveyed by his vocals. In addition to his plethora of Hindi songs and occasional solo pop albums, the artist has also sung in other languages—including Bengali, as he did on the title track for Bhaijaan Elo Re in 2018. Some sources cite him crooning more than 6,000 songs in up to 1,000 films over the years.