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If music is a powerful form of communication, Begum Akhtar was the first effective communicator. She was the one who realized the power of music and used this medium to convey a message. She zealously guarded a rare pathos in her notes as a stamp of her irreproducible style and identity. After 34 years since she passed away, today when there are only a few takers of classical music her records are still best-sellers.  She added ghazals to the classical stage and approachable to the common man. She knew how to communicate with her audience. She chose the lyrics carefully and furnished them to the audience in her own style, which helped her manage to achieve personal rapport.

She was born in 1914 in the Faizabad district of Uttar Pradesh. Under the able guidance of Atta Ahmed Khan of Patiala, she began musical training. There she learnt the classical and semi-classical forms of singing be it ghazals, bhajans, dadra or thumri. She also has trained her students  and groomed them for their all round development of her students which is unbelievable.

She was a secularist and nationalist. Padam Shri Begam Akhtar was once approached by a few maulvis to get a favour for their masjid in Baranbanki as they claimed that the masjid was taken over by Hindus and they are performing pooja there. She replied, it is a form of IBADAT (prayer) that is being held there. She was a true patriot.

She always believed in the empowerment of women. Akhtaribai Faizabadi, popularly known as Begam Akhtar gave her first performance when she was 15 years old. Her first recording was recorded with Megaphone Record Company. She started her acting career with Mumtaz Begum in 1934. She stopped performing for five years after marriage. Once she fell ill and music was prescribed as the only remedy. There was a personal  rapport that she managed to achieve with each member of her audience, almost as if she was singing exclusively for an individual listener.