How Asha Bhosle became the queen of Indipop

Remembering Asha Bhosle's transformative journey across Indian music genres. Read on to know why the legendary singer was called Queen of Indipop

In Short

• Asha Bhosle died at 92 in Mumbai on April 12
• She was known as one of Bollywood's playback queens and an Indipop icon
• Her Indipop album Jaanam Samjha Karo released in 1997

Asha Bhosle died at Mumbai's Breach Candy Hospital on Sunday at the age of 92. She had been admitted the previous evening following extreme exhaustion and a chest infection. The last of the great voices from Hindi cinema's golden era is gone. But if there's one thing Asha Bhosle's story tells us, it's that she was never content with just one era or just one genre.

Most people know her as the playback queen of Bollywood. What often gets overlooked is that in the 90s, when most singers her age were winding down, Asha Bhosle was just getting started all over again, this time as a pop icon.

Why is Asha Bhosle called the Queen of Indipop?

The 1990s were a strange and exciting time for Indian music. Asha had already dominated the film music landscape across multiple decades, from the cabaret numbers of the 60s and 70s to the ghazals of the 80s. But when the Indipop wave hit and non-film albums sold independently, MTV India launched and audiences suddenly wanted music that didn't need a movie attached to it. Asha didn't step aside. She stepped in.

In 1997, she released Jaanam Samjha Karo, a private Indipop album made with musician Leslie Lewis. It was a massive hit and won her the MTV Award that year. Here was a woman in her mid-sixties, sharing MTV stage time with artists half her age, and winning.

What made her the queen of the genre wasn't just this one album, though. It was the fact that she understood what pop music needed: energy, playfulness, and the ability to connect across generations. Her work ranged from classical to popular, to fusion Indipop and bhangra projects, and she recorded songs with artists like Boy George and Michael Stipe. She was a Bollywood legend who was also genuinely a pop star.

How did she transition from Bollywood to pop music?

Asha Bhosle never really stopped transitioning. Her entire career was one long, restless reinvention.

She began singing professionally as a child after the death of her father, alongside her elder sister Lata Mangeshkar, to support their family. In the early years of her career, she was handed the songs no one else wanted – the vamp numbers, the cabaret tracks, the B-movie material. She took them and made them her own.

By the 1960s and 70s, such songs had become her signature. She became the voice of Bollywood's most iconic dancer, Helen. Their collaborations on songs like Piya Tu Ab To Aaja, O Haseena Zulfon Wali and Yeh Mera Dil remain beloved to this day. Then came her years with RD Burman, where she mastered a whole new western-influenced sound. Then came ghazals. Then classical collaborations. Then pop.

Her pop transition wasn't a sudden leap. It was the natural next step for a singer who had spent decades refusing to be put in a box.

Which albums made her a pop icon?

Four albums, in particular, define her pop legacy:

Jaanam Samjha Karo (1997) – This is the one that changed the conversation. Made with Leslie Lewis, one of Indipop's most celebrated producers, the album was a huge success and was recognised with multiple music awards. It showed that Asha's voice didn't just fit into pop, it elevated it.

Kabhi To Nazar Milao (1997) – This duet with Adnan Sami became one of her most celebrated pop collaborations, with the pairing of their voices creating a classic that still gets played at weddings and playlists across the country.

Rahul and I (2000) – More than a pop album, this was a tribute. The album consisted of remixed versions of RD Burman compositions and brought an entirely new audience to music that had originally been recorded decades earlier. Younger listeners discovered Pancham-da through Asha's voice, again.

Aap Ki Asha (2002) – Often overlooked in conversations about her pop work, this album deserves more credit than it gets. Na Marte Hum became one of its standout tracks – a song that found its way into living rooms, radio stations and mixtapes with equal ease. The album showed a softer, more intimate side of Asha's pop sensibility, different from the energy of Jaanam Samjha Karo but just as enduring.

Beyond specific albums, she also collaborated with international artists – British band Cornershop even dedicated their 1997 song Brimful of Asha to her, which went on to top the UK Singles Chart in 1998. A Bollywood playback singer topping charts in Britain. That's the scale of what she built.

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