Bappi Lahiri

Bappi Lahiri (27 November 1952 – 16 February 2022) was an Indian composer and singer known as the 'Disco King of India'. Nephew of Kishore Kumar, he pioneered disco in Hindi cinema with hits like 'I Am a Disco Dancer' and 'Jimmy Jimmy' and composed thousands of songs.

Bappi Lahiri, born Alokesh Lahiri on 27 November 1952, was an Indian composer and singer who became the pioneer of disco music in Hindi cinema. Famed for his flamboyant style, gold jewellery and dark sunglasses, he was affectionately known as the "Disco King of India" and gave Bollywood some of its most iconic dance numbers of the 1980s. A prolific and versatile musician, he composed thousands of songs across several languages before his death in 2022. This page covers the Bappi Lahiri biography, his age, family, career, wife and net worth.

The Bappi Lahiri family was steeped in music. His father, Aparesh Lahiri, was a Bengali singer, and his mother, Bansari Lahiri, was a singer and classical dancer. He was also the nephew of the legendary singer-actor Kishore Kumar, a connection that shaped his early love of music.

Bappi Lahiri began learning the tabla at the age of three and went on to master the piano, drums, guitar, saxophone and other instruments. Growing up surrounded by professional musicians, he was determined from childhood to make a career in music, moving to Mumbai as a young man to pursue it.

The Bappi Lahiri career as a film composer began with the Hindi film Nanha Shikari (1973), followed by his Bengali debut Daadu (1974). His breakthrough came with Zakhmee (1975), which established him as a rising talent.

He redefined Hindi film music in the late 1970s and 1980s by pioneering a disco sound, delivering blockbuster soundtracks for films like Disco Dancer, Namak Halaal and Sharaabi. Songs such as "I Am a Disco Dancer" and "Jimmy Jimmy" became global hits, the latter earning enormous popularity even in China and the former parts of the Soviet Union.

Extraordinarily prolific, he set a record for composing music for numerous films in a single year and produced thousands of songs across Hindi, Bengali, Telugu and other languages. In his later years he judged music reality shows and lent his voice to Hindi dubs of Hollywood films, and in 2018 he received the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award.

Bappi Lahiri married Chitrani Lahiri on 24 January 1977. The couple had two children — a son, Bappa Lahiri, who followed him into music as a composer, and a daughter, Rema Lahiri, who is a singer. Devoted to his family and famously fond of gold, Bappi once described gold as his good-luck charm, saying "gold is my God". He wore a Hare Krishna medallion given by his mother after his first hit film.

The Bappi Lahiri net worth was reported by third-party outlets at around ₹20 crore (a public estimate rather than a confirmed figure), not counting his famed collection of gold jewellery. His income came from decades of film music composition, live shows, royalties and reality-television appearances. He reportedly commanded significant fees per song at the height of his career during the disco era.