A. M. Rajah  Aemala Manmadharaju Rajah (popularly known as A. M. Rajah) was an Indian playback singer and music director. His songs were featured in numerous Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada in the 1950s, early 1960s and early 1970s. He also sang in a few Hindi and Sinhalese films during this period. He also composed music for several films. Rajah was born on 1 July 1929 in Renukapuram village in Chittoor District in present-day Andhra Pradesh to Manmadharaju and Lakshmamma. His father died when he was three months old and then the family moved to Renukapuram and Madras (Chennai) later. His tertiary education was at Pachaiyappa's College from where he graduated with a B.A. Degree. By this time, Rajah was an accomplished piano player and had won several prizes in singing competitions. He was well versed in Carnatic Music and Western Classical Music. He was also highly influenced by the Hindi and Gazal music and was then the only answer from the South to North Indian singers like Talat Mehmood, Mukesh, Mohammed Rafi and Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay in the 1950s. During his University days, Rajah wrote, composed and sang two songs in his mother tongue, Telugu, with the instrumental support of the music director K. V. Mahadevan for HMV which were broadcast by All India Radio. Gemini Studios boss S. S. Vasan listened to these songs and, impressed, booked him for his next film, "Samsaram" (1951) with the approval of his music director, Emani Sankara Sastry, and also his good friend Kalki Krishnamurthy. By this time Rajah was also already recording songs for the films "Rajambal" (for R. S. Manohar, incidentally his senior in the University) with P. Leela and "Kumaari" (for M. G. Ramachandran) with Jikki for music composers M. S. Gnanamani and K. V. Mahadevan respectively. Rajah, with instant popularity after the "Samsaram" songs came on the air, went on to sing in various languages, including Hindi and was the uncrowned prince of the South in the early and mid-1950s.