In that same year, Rafi was invited by All India Radio Lahore station to sing for them. In 1941, Rafi made his debut in Lahore as a playback singer in the duet 'Soniye Nee, Heeriye Nee' with Zeenat Begum in the Punjabi film Gul Baloch (released in 1944) under music director Shyam Sunder. His first public performance came at the age of 13, when he sang in Lahore featuring K. Rafi learnt classical music from Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan, Pandit Jiwan Lal Mattoo and Firoze Nizami. Rafi's father moved to Lahore in 1935, where he ran a men's barbershop in Noor Mohalla in Bhati Gate. Rafi, whose nickname was Pheeko, began singing by imitating the chants of a fakir who roamed the streets of his native village Kotla Sultan Singh. The family originally belonged to Kotla Sultan Singh, a village near present-day Majitha in Amritsar district of Punjab, India. Mohammed Rafi was the second eldest of six brothers born to Allah Rakhi and Haji Ali Mohammad in a Punjabi Jat Muslim family. Apart from Indian languages, he also sang in some foreign languages, including English, Farsi, Arabic, Sinhala, Mauritian Creole, and Dutch. He recorded as many as 7,000 songs throughout his career, spanning several languages and dialects such as Konkani, Assamese, Bhojpuri, Odia, Bengali, Marathi, Sindhi, Kannada, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Magahi, Maithili, etc. He recorded songs for over a thousand Hindi films and in many Indian languages as well as some foreign languages, though primarily in Urdu and Punjabi, over which he had a strong command. In 2013, Rafi was voted for the Greatest Voice in Hindi Cinema in the CNN-IBN's poll. In 2001, Rafi was honoured with the 'Best Singer of the Millennium' title by Hero Honda and Stardust magazine. In 1967, he was honored with the Padma Shri award by the Government of India. He received six Filmfare Awards and one National Film Award.

He was known for his ability to mould his voice to the persona and style of the actor lip-syncing the song on screen in the movie. Rafi was notable for his versatility and range of voice his songs varied from fast peppy numbers to patriotic songs, sad numbers to highly romantic songs, qawwalis to ghazals and bhajans to classical songs.

He is considered to have been one of the greatest and most influential singers of the Indian subcontinent. Mohammed Rafi (24 December 1924 – 31 July 1980) was an Indian playback singer and musician.

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