Getty Images, https://www.glamour.com/story/best-thanksgiving-songs

1. “EDM Thillana – Ananda Bhairavi – Tala Adi,” Vinod Krishnan, Sushmitha Ravikumar, Vivek Ramaman, Mahesh Raghvan, Indian Raga, 2016, Carnatic Fusion, USA
2. “Bantureethi – Carnatic Fusion – Chandramouli”, Karthik Sekaran, Chandramouli, 2012, Fusion, Delhi, India
3. “Indian Summer”, Jai Wolf, Kindred Spirits, 2017, EDM, New York, USA
4. “Santo Domingo”, Bilal Shahid, Santo Domingo, 2017, South Asian Pop, Lahore, Pakistan
5. “Morning Terrors Nights of Dread”, Shilpa Ray, Door Girl, Indie/Punk Rock, Brooklyn, NY
6. “Petal”, Raveena, Lucid, 2019, R&B, New York, New York
7. “Anybody Can be in Love”, KAINA, Anybody Can be in Love, 2021, Alternative/R&B, Chicago, IL
8. “Love Nwantiti (Acoustic version)”, CKay, CKay the First, 2020, Afrobeats, Kaduna, Nigeria 
9. “Lotus Flower Bomb” – Wale ft. Miguel, Ambition, 2011, Pop Rap/R&B, Atlanta, Georgia
10. “Dance With You”, Mulherin, Dance With You, 2021, R&B/Soul, Los Angeles, California

Through a careful selection of tracks, this playlist shows the changing dynamics of the music industry. I include an assortment of tracks from artists who create room for themselves in new music networks, travelling outside of their localities to reach new audiences. I also include tracks from artists that have been able to reach new audiences through their use of non-corporate streaming platforms, hoping to maintain control over their music through the process. This playlist shows that young artists are changing the music industry by attempting to reach new audiences by taking more control of their own music.

My playlist begins with “EDM Thillana” which is a remix of an original Thillana by IndianRaga, a music lab in the US. It combines Western EDM beats with Carnatic music and the EDM beats complement the rhythmic parts of the song through call and response. The “taalam”, or rhythm, is kept largely by the electronic keyboard. This song broadens the perspectives of the typical Carnatic music listener and reaches those outside of the typical listener by using EDM as a genre they might already be familiar with as an introduction to Carnatic music.

The next song is “Bantureethi – Carnatic Fusion”. Bantureethi was originally composed by Sri Tyagaraja but on SoundCloud, this artist classifies this song to be fusion and uses instruments like the guitar, bongos, drums, the triangle, and the xylophone throughout the piece (Ramasubramaniam). The classical raga is overlaid on top of the Western medley of music in such a way that the only identifier of it as a Carnatic piece of music is the words. Once again, this artist aims to reach a new audience that might not be familiar with Carnatic music by overlaying this song over a Western medley of instruments. 

The next song on the playlist is “Indian Summer” by Jai Wolf. Jai Wolf is a New York based electronic music producer and although this song is classified as EDM, it is also very different from mainstream EDM music. It’s soft and smooth and repeats a Hindi verse, creating feelings of hope and calmness for the listener. This song not only shows how Wolf is able to create room for himself in a typically Western dominated music field but also how he is able to bring new listeners from his background as a South Asian artist into the electronic music scene. 

Next is “Santo Domingo” by Bilal Shaeed. Bilal is a Pakistani artist and this song is quite literally the most “global” song I have heard. It is a Pakistani artist, writing a song about a city in the Dominican Republic that switches between English, Arabic, Spanish, and Urdu. Closely resembling a Western pop song,  Bilal is essentially creating a pop music scene in Pakistan, a country where music is only popularized through film. He is bridging the gap through pop listeners in Pakistan and in the West by using similar musical and cinematic elements that are broadly familiar. 

The next song on my playlist is called “Morning Terrors Nights of Dread” by Shilpa Ray. She is the first South Asian artist I have encountered in the punk rock scene. Her deep, husky voice is accompanied by typical punk rock tunes played by the drums and guitar. This song is indicative of the dark style of her other songs, a style that is not very popular amongst South Asian music genres. Being one of the only South Asian artists in the punk rock and indie scene, not only is she breaking the typical race norms of the punk rock music scene, she is opening doors for more listeners who identify with South Asian artists to join the punk rock music scene.

“Petal” is a song written by Raveena Aurora, an artist who grew up in Queens in a Sikh household with exposure to R&B, Soul, Jazz, and folk music. She is well known for incorporating her Indian roots as she sings about romance and loss, topics that are not often talked about in South Asian cultures. Raveena’s music functions similarly to how Bollywood dance functions according to Shresthova, “providing glimpses into the private sphere” (Shresthova 2008, 251).  Raveena is making room for herself, and other South Asian artists, in the R&B scene by telling her stories. She is not only increasing exposure of Western listeners of South Asian artists but also normalizing stigmatized topics by singing about them for her South Asian listeners. 

The next song is Anybody Can be in Love by KAINA, a 23-year-old immigrant. It’s slow and soft, with a drum beat background vocals. It’s euphoric with the exception of one portion of the song which is an electric guitar solo. KAINA is deliberately making room for herself in the R&B realm as a Latinx artist. She says music is the one thing that she can create and one thing that can never be taken away from her and in doing so perfectly embodies what van Klyton writes about: “music being used as a tool or outlet by which [musicians] can create [their] own sense of being” (van Klyton 2016, 116).

“Love Nwantiti” by CKay is next. CKay is originally from Nigeria and is currently signed with Warner Music in South Africa. This is a love song sung in English and Igbo and when I first listened to it, it had Carnatic sounding elements, including an “alapana” which is when the artist rotates through a series of signature notes without words. We see that characteristics might be associated with one music type, are not necessarily limited to that music type, but can be found in other musical practices. I found this song on TikTok and it exposed me to more Afrobeats. I believe TikTok is changing the music industry by allowing music to travel seamlessly across international borders. 

Up until about 5 or 6 years ago, MTV and the radio held the power of deciding which songs were popular but now, TikTok has this power. TikTok has done more than one can imagine to popularize music of smaller artists. “Lotus Flower Bomb” by Wale was originally released in 2011 but recently re-popularized in 2020 on TikTok. It has 4.6 million  TikTok videos and shows how platforms like TikTok allow not only for new artists to find their voice, but also how they allow experienced artists to revive theirs. 

The playlist ends with “Dance with You” by Mulherin, an uplifting, optimistic song that  generates nostalgia and comfort for me. Wary of dependency on a singular platform to promote their music, they use multiple platforms and serve as their own promoters. Whitmore finds that industry personnel and promoters “identify with their audiences, are sensitive to the musicians they work with… and [are] reflective about their own actions” (Whitmore 2016). There is a movement of artists trying to take control over their own music, minimizing the need for promoters.

Barriers between historically different music genres are being broken down, and listeners are moving from one music scene to another as artists that they identify with create room for themselves in new music stages. All in all, the commercial music industry seems to be becoming more inclusive and accessible and this is all thanks to young artists who attempt to take control of their own music, define their own paths, and create room for themselves on the mainstage. 

This playlist was created by Saranya Turimella, a senior at The University of Chicago. She has been exposed to music since a very young age, with her mom being a professional veena player. She has learned Carnatic music for 10 years and is a professionally trained Kuchipudi dancer.  In her free time, she enjoys running and exploring with her friends. 

Bibliography: 

Aaron van Klyton. 2016. “All the way from … Authenticity and Distance in World Music Production” Cultural Studies, 30:1, 106-128.

Shresthova, Sangita. 2008. “Dancing to an Indian Beat: ‘Dola’ Goes My Diasporic Heart.” Global Bollywood: Travels of Hindi Song and Dance, edited by Sangita Gopal and Sujata Moorti, University of Minnesota Press, 243–63

Ramasubramaniam, Uma. “Song Bantureethi Kolu – Raga Surabhi: Raga Surabhi.” Raga Surabhi, January 16, 2010. December 8, 2021. https://www.ragasurabhi.com/carnatic-music/song/song–bantureethi-kolu–hamsanadam–adi–thyagaraja.html.

Whitmore, Aleysia K. 2016. “The Art of Representing the Other: Industry Personnel in the World Industry.” Ethnomusicology, vol. 60, 329–55.