Udit Narayan Jha, credited as Udit Narayan (born 1 December 1955), is a playback singer of Nepalese paternal descent whose songs have been featured mainly in Bollywood movies of Hindi language. He has also sung in various other languages including Maithili, Nepali and Bhojpuri. He has won three National Film Awards and five Filmfare Awards. He is the only male singer in the history of the Filmfare Awards to have won in over three decades . Udit Narayan was awarded the Padma Shri in 2009, and in 2016 he was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India, an honour that has been awarded to only a handful of singers, in recognition of his achievements in various film industries across India. He was awarded the Prabal Gorkha Dakshin Bahu by the King of Nepal Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev in 2001 and Chitragupta Cineyatra Samman 2015 for Bhojpuri Cinema. As many as 21 of his tracks feature in BBC's "Top 40 Bollywood Soundtracks of all time".
Udit Narayan was born to Harekrishna Jha and Bhuvaneshwari Jha. In a 2017 interview with the Indian magazine Outlook, he clarified that he was born in Baisi, the native village of his mother Bhuvaneshwari, in the Supaul district of Bihar, India; his father Harekrishna was a native of Bhardaha, Saptari District, Sagarmatha Zone, Nepal. Earlier, in 2009, when his acceptance of the Padma Shri award of India led to his criticism in Nepal, he had told the Nepalese daily Kantipur that he was "from Nepal but his mother's home was in Bihar."
Narayan studied at Jageshwar High School, Kunauli, Supaul, Bihar, India, where he finished his SSC and later obtained his intermediate degree from Ratna Rajya Lakshmi Campus, Kathmandu, Nepal. His father Harekrishna Jha was a farmer and his mother Bhuvneshwari Devi was a folk singer. His mother encouraged him to pursue music as a career.