Nanda was born on 23 August 1943 as the fourth child to a rural family of nine in Lewwanduwa in Aluthgama, Sri Lanka. Her father, Vincent Perera was a skillful tailor and ready-made coat maker. Her mother, Liyanage Emily Perera was a housewife. She has four sisters and four brothers. She moved to Kotahena in Colombo as an adolescent and was admitted to Sri Gunananda Vidyalaya where she came under the tutelage of T. N. Margaret Perera.
She was married to Suneth Gokula and the couple has two daughters – Varuni Saroja, Ama Sarada. Elder daughter Varuni is married to Chaminda, son of popular lyricist Dharmasiri Gamage. Younger daughter Ama is married to Sanjeewa.
In 1956, she contested for ‘Padya Gayana’ competition held at Borella YMBA, in which she won a gold medal. After winning the poetry contest, Radio Ceylon W. D. Amaradeva invited Nanda to take part in a song, she sang the song Budu Sadu written by Asoka Colombage and set to music by D. D. Danny on Karunaratne Abeysekera's popular program known as Lama Mandapaya on Radio. In 1963, Amaradeva selected Malini for background singing for the film Ranmuthu Duwa, the first Sinhala colour film. In that film, she sang the song Galana Gagaki Jeewithe with Narada Disasekara which was the first song written by Chandraratne Manawasinghe for cinema. The film won all the Sarasavi awards for music that year where Malini won the award for the Best Female Singer, her first major award. Since then she has sung in many films and has won 11 Sarasavi awards, 8 Presidential awards and adjudged the most popular female vocalist from 1995-98.
Nanda continued her training after achieving fame, learning under B. Victor Perera. She studied for a year at Heywood Institute of Art and moving on to Bhatkhande Music Institute in Lucknow, India in 1963. She would later return to the University to obtain a Visharada degree in 1984 with a First Division Distinction.
Upon her return to Sri Lanka, Malini appeared on W.D. Amaradeva's program "Madhuvanthi" singing the songs Sannaliyane and Ran Dahadiya Bindu Bindu. Malini has had a string of successful releases. Her lyrics depict realistic life situations, love, relationships, and emotions. The songs Pipunu Male Ruwa, Sudu Hamine, and Kada Mandiye attest to her effort to expose the hearts of women. Some of Nanda's popular songs, such as Manda Nawa Karanawa, show a humorous and sensitive account of a young woman's experience of loneliness.
In 1971, Nanda collaborated with Amaradewa in the "Srawana Aradhana concert". In 1973, she started her first solo concert series, and after having 530 shows the series ended on 22 May 1979. In August 1981 she started another concert series "Sathyaye Geethaya". She played 500 shows and ended in August 1984. She conducted her next solo musical concert series "Pavana" in June 1987 which ran for 18 months with 205 shows. Her songs in "Pavana" were banned in SLBC and SLRC where the concert was also banned. After 22 years her newest solo musical concert titled "Shwetha Rathriya" was held with the collaboration of Sirasa FM in 2010.
In 1984, she established a music academy Nanda Malini Ashram.
Malini has produced 25 cassettes such as Malata Renu, Saadu Naada and Sari Podiththak. On 8 September 2007, she launched her CD Etha Kandu Yaye comprising a collection of 16 award winning songs. The launching ceremony was held at the BMICH Open Air Theater at 7.30 p.m. In 1993, she composed a CD "Kunkuma Pottu" which has songs sung in Tamil. Another of her CD's titled "Andaharaya" is made up of music composed of computer software.
In 2017, she has conferred the honorary degree ‘Darshana Shuri’, Doctor of Philosophy of Fine Arts by the University of Visual and Performing Arts. It was the first time that a female artiste was recognized by a university in Sri Lanka.
