Harini is an Indian film playback and classical singer born and raised in Chennai. She sings predominantly in Tamil films, besides other language films such as Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada films. She was first noticed by music director A. R. Rahman at a school competition where she was one among the winners. Eventually, she was signed in to record the song "Nila Kaigiradhu" for the film Indira (1995) when she was 15. The song went on to become one of the popular songs of the year and Harini began to get singing offers from other leading film composers.