Music Inc. 2019: Mapping India's Pop Culture

Music industry experts spoke about India’s pop culture and how it has evolved At the Day 2 of Music.Inc 2.0 engaging talks on the music ecosystem, collaboration of music and brands were held. One such panel discussion delved into the pop culture genre. An esteemed panellist of artist and music industry experts like Dhvani Bhanushali, Artist, AKASA, Artist, Rohan Jha, Head, Sony Music Pop, Sony Music Entertainment India Pvt. Ltd and Kenneth Hopkins, Founder, BollyCon spoke on the topic: Mapping India’s Pop Culture. The moderator of the panel discussion was Shibani Kashyap, Artist. Speaking about nurturing the plans of the artist in every aspect and breaking through the clutter, Jha, Head, Sony Music Pop, Sony Music Entertainment India Pvt. Ltd said, “It is a 360 approach, from the artist we have had in the past to now Badshah and AKASA to name a few. The idea is always to be a partner to the artist and we develop the artist as a brand. There are so many aspects of an artist now. When you have different personalities of an artist you want to be with them at different stages. Four years ago when Badshah had just started at that time we had launched with Arjun and DIVINE it was an upward climb. We realized that there was a need to put a commercial sense to independent artist and make them mainstream.” From the youngest Indian pop star’s perspective in terms of being invested in the production of the music videos, Bhanushali, Artist, remarked, “It all comes down to teamwork. It is just not me. It is about everyone putting in their hours. But if you are working on something you need to be a part of it from scratch. I’m there in every step of the way. I show the viewers in the videos a very realistic portrayal of that song.” For AKASA, Artist, breaking away from singing and opening gigs for Mica changed her life. “From doing large scale shows to doing my own solo shows which were not obviously large scale. That is how my journey began. When I met Sony Music my dream came true and I had a music revolution”, said AKASA. There has been a re-birth in desi music culture at the moment. The pop-culture community should own it. We are finally in a time where we own our Indian identity and we are finally in a renaissance of desi area. Technology has helped people get to view and consume content and that has changed the pop culture ecosystem. Mapping this pop-culture is looking at an artist journey like Dhwani and AKASA. “It is the musicians, storytellers, songwriters which tells a very quick story that fits that song. Songs like Vatsa gave us that, an entire story in one song. The different formats of content that we look at are another element that adds to the desi pop culture ecosystem. Also, it is all about how to sustain a community and understand where they fit in a broader desi pop culture ecosystem”, states Hopkins, Founder, BollyCon.