Neha Kakkar

Neha Kakkar (born 6 June 1988) is an Indian playback singer. She began performing at religious events at the age of four and participated in the second season of the singing reality show, Indian Idol, in which she was eliminated early in the show. After several struggles in her career, she made her Bollywood debut as a chorus singer in the film Meerabai Not Out (2008). She rose to prominence upon the release of the dance track "Second Hand Jawani" from Cocktail (2012) which was followed by several other popular party songs including "Sunny Sunny" from Yaariyan (2014) and "London Thumakda" from Queen (2014).
Afterwards, she mostly performed party tracks like "Aao Raja" from Gabbar Is Back (2015), "Tu Isaq Mera" from Hate Story 3 (2015), "Humne Pee Rakhi Hai" from Sanam Re (2016) and "Kar Gayi Chull" from Kapoor & Sons (2016). She proved her versatility in musical range with the release of "Mile Ho Tum" from Fever (2016) which topped the list of most-viewed Bollywood songs on YouTube. She then released several chart-busters which made into the same list, including "Aankh Maarey" from Simmba (2018), "Dilbar" from Satyameva Jayate (2018), "Badri Ki Dulhania" from Badrinath Ki Dulhania (2017), "Cheez Badi" from Machine (2017), "Kala Chashma" for the film Baar Baar Dekho (2016) and the non-film song "Nikle Currant", all of which crossed over six hundred million views. Similarly, "Dilbar" marks the first Indian song to reach number three spot on the Billboard YouTube Music Chart.

Early life

Kakkar was born on 6 June 1988 in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand. She is the younger sister of playback singer Sonu Kakkar and singer-composer Tony Kakkar.During the early days, her father, Rishikesh Kakkar used to sell samosa outside a college for a living while her mother Niti Kakkar was a homemaker.n the city, Kakkar shared a rented single room house with her whole family, in which they used to sleep and simultaneously convert to a kitchen by putting a table.

Career

2006–2012: Career beginnings and breakthrough with Cocktail

Kakkar anticipated that her participation in Indian Idol and the association with her brother, Tony Kakkar, fueled her career into playback singing.However, five years post Indian Idol, Kakkar failed to gather any work in Bollywood films which she believes was due to her "negligence in pleading the music directors and producers, unlike the rest of participants from the show". Hence, she became more occupied with the concerts and event performances that took her "across the world".According to her, during this phase she started getting recognised and people started referring her as the "Jai Mata Di girl".Kakkar at the premiere event of Premiere of Marathi film Janiva, 2015