How the fusion of folk and electronic is renewing the tone for dance music in India

A league of electronic music producers and DJs are tapping into a moment where centuries-old Indian folk music is meeting beats of house and bass on the dance floor

No one foresaw the groundbreaking success of Dilbar, least of all the track’s makers—the electronic music duos Tech Panda & Kenzani, and Rusha & Blizza. Released in November 2022, Dilbar, a track that fuses a Punjabi folk song sample with a mash of internationally-familiar dance beats, made its way to Instagram. A month later, it was trending under #DiscoveredOnReels. 

In February this year, actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas chose Dilbar as the soundtrack to a Reel, an assemblage of photos of her and Nick Jonas on a snowy holiday. In March, the Norwegian dance crew The Quick Style added fuel to fire by creating a brief, but typically energetic choreography on the song, released in time for their debut visit to India. And suddenly, it was the song of the summer, gathering over three million streams on YouTube, and over 10 million on Spotify—and counting.

More than just a fad?

“Dilbar ended up exposing our sound to the masses, which, in turn, went through our previous tracks and loved them as well,” says Aman Khare aka Blizza, admitting that folk had not been part of their modus operandi when he began to lay down the beats with Paurush Kumar (Rusha), after the two were impressed by each other’s gym playlists. 

“We still feel our home territory lies somewhere in experimental sound design, but of hyper pop, with future bass,” adds Kumar. Rusha & Blizza’s EPs, like the genre-defying Mudra and Better Future Frequencies are testament to their wide range of influences and avant-garde leanings. “Having said that, it's always fun to experiment with folk elements and such mixes of ours have also gotten a lot of mileage in recent years,” says Kumar.  

The success of Dilbar, with a vocal sample by the acclaimed Sufi singer Bibi Swaran Nooran, revealed a subgenre that had been cooking under the radar for at least three years now—a new form of folk and electronic fusion, broadly tying in with an older genre called folktronica, but also tentatively being called “ambient Indian electronica” within the industry. Could this be another fad, or are we at last looking at the future of Indian folk and dance music?

To answer that, let’s look at the form’s history. Folktronica, or the fusion of electronica and folk music, is a form that evolved in the 1990s, when global dance music pioneers like Four Tet and Caribou began to blend ‘rootsy’ music with synths and drum machines. It emerged in East Europe in the 1980s, and evolved around the globe in the ’90s and early-2000s—pushed into newer realms by such titans as New York’s Sufjan Stevens, Chicago’s Tortoise, and even Iceland’s Bjork. The term, however, quickly fell out of favour with artists who found it a restrictive label.

Best of both worlds

At the turn of the century, the Asian Underground movement tapped into the spirit of folk-electronic fusion. Venerated artists like Nitin Sawhney, Talvin Singh, Karsh Kale, the Asian Dub Foundation reckoned with their South Asian musical legacy and their contemporary reality by fusing sounds of the sitar, tabla, Indian vocals (classical, folk and popular) with drum and bass, dancehall, dub and jungle. 

Taking their lead, in India, artists like the MIDIval Punditz (Gaurav Raina and Tapan Raj), Hari & Sukhmani, and The Bandish Projekt (Mayur Narvekar, Mehir Nath Chopra and Udyan Sagar aka Nucleya) emerged from various parts of North India and found inspiration in the idea that a niche could be carved, where the past and future, the hyper-native and the international, could unite on the dance floor. 

There is a new wave of artists pushing folk-electronic fusion to the fore. Bengaluru-based Rakuuth’s 2022 EP Sadhya fuses South Indian instruments and vocals with machine drum beats. DJ Fake Tattoos, also from Bengaluru, marries Dombra sounds with big room house on his latest track Shehzada. 

Mumbai’s SickFlip (Sarvesh Shrivastava) has been doing this for years now, but his mixes now feature on the soundtracks of films and television series such as Gehraiyaan and Mismatched. Kahani in New York is manifesting a future for “Indo-House” with boisterous tracks like Ranjha and being the breakout act at music festivals. 

Subcontinental sounds are such a trend in dance music right now that even the French music producer DJ Snake, who blew up in 2013 with Turn Down For What, has now collaborated with Punjab’s Sufi singer-duo Nooran Sisters for Guddi Riddim, an electrifying single released late last year, which now has four million streams on YouTube.   

“Every 10 years or so, people seem to begin craving for that sound,” says Tech Panda, aka Rupinder Nanda. Nanda and Kedar Santwani aka Kenzani’s first experiment with this form was in 2018, with the sitar-based house track Naani. Nanda’s education in classical music, Santwani’s ear for the beat, and the pair’s exposure to a wide range of music—from Frank Sinatra to Attaullah Khan Esakhelvi, the Asian underground masters to Mehdi Hassan and techno’s titans—meant they were open to sounds from unusual places.

Catering to a younger demographic

“We wanted to expand our repertoire, and folk music was always of interest [to us],” says Santwani. “We knew it was disappearing and there’s not much you can do about it because the sounds keep changing, people are losing touch with their culture.” Nanda adds, “So we thought, let’s bring it back, re-package it so younger audiences can connect.”

Nostalgia is a major factor for their music going places, feel Tech Panda and Kenzani. “Now, the technology is so elevated that we have access to better samples, cleaner sound, clearer recordings, and better re-visited versions,” says Nanda. “The quality is better, and the sound behind the vocals is helping it go international. It’s clicking even with people who don’t understand the language.” 

“It does seem like the entire subgenre is making a comeback, and in a more organic way,” says Khare. “What's different this time around might be the fact that the masses are craving for a sound which is fueled solely by creativity and not following the template, and they're much more open to new ideas and sounds—which is good for everyone in the same space as us.” 

As the music finds its audience, the artists are also reckoning with the larger mission before them—to become this generation’s carriers of folk music from across the country, beyond borders. Folk music’s emotive, expressive nature means it is particularly pliable on the sampler. But most Indian folk music has survived largely as oral musical legacies passed down within families; not necessarily codified or archived. 

“I feel the whole purpose of using folk is to recollect and save it with us,” says Nanda. Tech Panda & Kenzani have their ear out for melodies from around the country. Apart from the Manganiyar sample on Khoyo, they’ve sampled Baul folk music from Kolkata, but are also looking to capture Kashmiri and Pahadi folk. “It’s a small step from our side to help it sustain, keep it alive. But there are a lot of ways for folk music to be preserved.”

Old-school meets contemporary

Efforts to keep folk music alive and kicking have been many, and fruitful—from festivals like Jodhpur RIFF, platforms like Coke Studio, and productions like Roysten Abel’s wildly popular Manganiyar Seduction. “In 2009, we launched our label with a 70-minute record by the artists of the Manganiyar Seduction,” remembers Ashutosh Sharma, co-founder of Amarrass Records, which has been dedicated to Indian folk artists for nearly 15 years. “Thirty-five of them had sat in a bus, driven up to our studio in Delhi, had some tea, got into the recording room and in virtually a single take, we had our record. It was like a philharmonic without sheets,” he laughs.

“We did a show at Purana Qila in Delhi that year,” Sharma continues. “We made it to Time magazine; 3,500-4000 people were at the show. . What I found strange was that people knew about the production, knew Roysten Abel, had heard of us as the ‘new kids on the block,’ loved the show—but went back without knowing the name of a single artist on stage.”

This observation—that a generic display and presentation of folk art may not fully change things for the better—made Sharma, and his business partner Ankur Malhotra (also known as DJ SpinCycle), reconsider their own path. “It’s the individual who defines the art and culture, not the other way round,” he says. “Otherwise, how would you know the difference between the Padma Shri recipient who had played with Yahoudi Menuin and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan—the late kamancha Sakar Khan—and the person who’s playing while you’re checking in at the hotel?”  

Amarrass’s roster today includes artists from Kumaon (Himali Mou), their “alter-egos”, the qawwals of Rehmat-e-Nusrat, among dozens others from various parts of North India. Most popular among them is The Barmer Boys, the trio of Manganiyar artists Manga, Sawai Khan and Magada Khan, who’ve been around since 2011 and played prestigious stages such as WOMAD, Ziro, and memorably, Roskilde festival, where they played a slot between OutKast and The Rolling Stones. 

“The idea was to maintain their roots but make it contemporary,” says Sharma. Now, the ex-Barmer Boys percussionist Rais Khan, is collaborating with Tech Panda & Kenzani. The track, expected next month, “has a very old-school dance vibe to it,” says Santwani adding that they’ve already collaborated with Khan on live shows with stellar results—and could envision a grander orchestral setup in the near future. “It’s something that was heard in the UK Bhangra scene maybe 10 years ago. We’ve mixed that kind of sound with their vocals and instruments. We’re excited.” 

“Music has to evolve in a way that it speaks to a younger audience,” says Sharma. “That’s how the roots will also survive because the younger audience is listening to it the way they want. Of course, there’s been a lot of fusion over the years, some of which is ‘confusion’,” he quips. “But these emerging forms can be a gateway to new audiences to explore deeper, and listen to original artists—who are already well-loved. They are the carriers of these songs and traditions, not us.”

Credit where it is due

Not all of those torchbearers of folk music see this in a positive light. Parvathy Baul, the famous folk singer, musician and storyteller from Bengal, who trained under Sri Sanatan Das Thakur Baul and Sri Shashanko Goshai, says she would not listen to this genre of music. “At least in the case of baul, our poetry is extremely important. It has been written by great saints and mystics, and it needs to be transmitted with a certain amount of dedication and attention. It cannot be mixed with many things, otherwise baul would never sing with an ektara.” 

The wandering minstrels of this syncretic group from Bengal have, since the 18th century, sung and played songs about their quest for oneness with the divine. “This [sort of fusion] does not convey anything to people, it isn’t even the right introduction to the music,” says Baul, over a phone call from Denmark, as she prepares for a concert at the Teatret OM as part of her ongoing Europe tour. “On the other side, there is the question of fair trade.” 

“All this music is created for commercial purposes, it is made to be sold,” she points out. “If you are selling things, you should give the right kind of credit to folk artists. Folk artists are not aware of these things, and to make them aware, in India, would take a lot of time. It is the responsibility of these musicians to ensure there is fair trade with these artists—so they are acknowledged, and so their families are supported.”

Sharma agrees on the second point. “For folk artists who are venturing into the world as real artists and not ‘cultural mascots’,” he says, “the main thing is to create your identity. You have to have your own brand, your own name. And you have to ensure that your name has to be featured on all these tracks. They have to give you credit and, importantly, royalties.”

“For folk artists who are venturing into the world as real artists and not ‘cultural mascots’,” he says, “the main thing is to create your identity. You have to have your own brand, your own name. And you have to ensure that your name has to be featured on all these tracks. They have to give you credit and, importantly, royalties. As long as that gets sorted, this is all good.”

Meanwhile, Tech Panda & Kenzani, Rusha & Blizza and their ilk will continue to forge new pathways for Indian dance music at large. “In our whole catalogue, we’ve done about 20-25 different genres,” says Santwani. “I think some of these have never been tried before. We don’t have any limitations. No one is really controlling us, we’re open to experiments.” 

“What we’re trying to achieve is to keep our sound very simple,” adds Nanda. “We’re trying to keep it golden so you can listen to it on repeat without it becoming too jarring. So that when the trend does change, at least the samples stay with you.” They know that timelessness is a prerogative of good music, not artists. “We want to keep evolving this, be known for this—but not just this,” adds Santwani. “With social media, things change at the speed of light. We’ve got to keep up. Otherwise you’d end up being a one-track hit artist,” he says. “Or a so-called ‘legend’.” 

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