Krishnan Nair Shantakumari Chithra (born 27 July 1963), credited as K. S. Chithra or Chithra, is an Indian playback singer and Carnatic musician. In a career spanning over four decades, she has recorded more than 25,000 songs in various Indian languages including Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tulu, Rajasthani, Urdu, Sanskrit, and Badaga as well as foreign languages such as Malay, Latin, Arabic, Sinhalese, English and French. She is also known for her extensive history of collaboration in the songs with Music Composers A.R. Rahman, Ilaiyaraja, Hamsalekha, M. M. Keeravani and with the playback singers KJ Yesudas and SP Balasubramaniyam over the years. She is regarded as a cultural icon of Kerala[6] and is fondly called as the Melody Queen and Nightingale of South India.

Chithra is a recipient of six National Film Awards, eight Filmfare Awards South and 36 different state film awards. She has won film awards from all the four south Indian states.[8][9][10] She was awarded India’s third highest civilian honor Padma Bhushan in 2021 and Padma Shri in 2005 for her valuable contributions towards the Indian musical fraternity. Chithra is the first Indian woman who was honored by the House of Commons, British Parliament, United Kingdom in 1997 and is the only singer from India who was honored by the Government of China at the Qinghai International Music and Water Festival in 2009. She is conferred with the highest honour of Rotary International, For the Sake of Honour award in 2001[citation needed and has received the MTV Video Music Award – International Viewer’s Choice at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York in 2001. She received honorary doctorates from Sathyabama University in 2011[17][18] and from The International Tamil University, United States in 2018.

She was honoured with Rashtrapati Award for being the First Ladies in the field of music felicitated by the Ministry of Women and Child Development of Government of India at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on 20 January 2018.[21][22] In 2018, she was honoured by Craig Coughlin, Speaker of the General Assembly, New Jersey, United States.[citation needed] In 2019, she was honoured by Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, sovereign ruler of the Emirate of Sharjah and a member of the Federal Supreme Council of the United Arab Emirates, for successfully completing 40 years in Indian film industry.[23] Her song “Kannalane/Kehna Hi Kya” from the film Bombay (1995) was included in The Guardian’s “1000 Songs Everyone Must Hear Before You Die” list
Born in Trivandrum, Kerala, into a family of musicians, Chithra’s father, Krishnan Nair, was her first teacher. Her elder sister K. S. Beena and her younger brother K. Mahesh are also playback singers.[citation needed] Chithra received her training in Carnatic music from Dr. K. Omanakutty, passed B.A. in music with first class and third rank from the University of Kerala, and completed a master’s degree in music.[8] She was selected to the National Talent Search Scholarship from the Central Government from 1978 to 1984.