Mano (singer)
Indian playback singer aka Mano
Nagoor Babu, known by his stage name Mano, is an Indian playback singer, voice-over artist, actor, and composer. Mano has recorded songs for film and private various Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, Tulu, Konkani and Assamese films. He has also performed for over 3000 live concerts across the continents. He has recorded many songs for music director Ilaiyaraaja. Mano is also recognized for being as the full-fledged dubbing artist for Rajinikanth in Telugu from Muthu (1995) onwards.
Career
Early days and debut
He learned Carnatic Music from Nedunuri Krishnamurthy, and acted in a number of stage plays before debuting as an actor, where he acted in 15 films in total, with Rangoon Rowdy being one of them.
His debut as a playback singer was in 1979, when he went to Madras to work with music director M. S. Viswanathan, with whom he worked for 3 years as an assistant.
He worked with director Chakaravarthy in 1982, producing dummy versions of songs, before the actual singers came in to do the recording. In 1984, he worked with S. P. Balasubrahmanyam and Susheela as the song needed a third voice for the film Karpoora Deepam. Shortly thereafter he worked on a hit Kannada film for Hamsalekha, and subsequently sang in a film for Ilaiyaraaja, after which his independent career took off.
The public source identifies “Mano (singer)” as indian playback singer aka Mano. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mano, singer and Indian.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3521030. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1995, 1979, 1982 and 1984.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mano (singer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.