This type of music originates from the Rajasthan, one of the states of India and home to several important centers of Indian musical development, including Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jaipur. The region's music shares similarities both with nearby areas of India and the other side of the border, in the Pakistani province of Sindh.
Rahat Fateh Ali Khan is a Pakistani singer, primarily Qawwali, a form of Sufi devotional music. Khan is one of the most popular and highest paid singers in Pakistan. He is the nephew of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, son of Farrukh Fateh Ali Khan and grandson of Qawwali singer Fateh Ali Khan In addition to Qawwali, he also performs ghazals and other light music. He is also well-known as a playback singer in Hindi cinema and the Pakistan film industry.
Karsh Kale is an Indian-American musician born in England. Known primarily for his experimental tabla playing within electronic music contexts, Kale's career has seen him take on roles of an Indian classical tabla player, singer, songwriter, film and TV score composer and DJ. He is considered a pioneer of the Asian Underground genre, bringing elements of Indian music to Electronica and Dance. His career highlights include touring as the supergroup Tabla Beat Science, 6 solo studio records from 1999, the seminal 2005 album "Breathing Under Water" with Anoushka Shankar, scoring and production for the 2019 Bollywood smash hit "Gully Boy", curating 6 acclaimed songs for the Indian Coke Studio in 2012, amongst many others. Kale is also popular for his eclectic collaborations with Sting, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Ustad Sultan Khan, U2, Norah Jones, Yoko Ono, and Herbie Hancock to name a few.
Bhatiali or bhatiyali is a form of folk music, sung in both Bangladesh and West Bengal, India. Bhatiali is a river song mostly sung by boatmen while going down streams of the river. The word bhatiyali comes from bhata meaning "ebb" or downstream.
Harshdeep Kaur is an Indian playback singer known for her Bollywood Hindi, Punjabi, English and Sufi songs. She is popularly known as "Sufi Ki Sultana" because of her soulful Sufi renditions. After winning titles in two reality shows, Kaur established herself as a lead singer in Bollywood soundtracks. Kaur was sixteen years old when she released her first Bollywood song, "Sajna Mai Haari".
Richa Sharma is an Indian film playback singer as well as a devotional singer. In 2006, she sang Bollywood's longest track, the bidaai song, in film Baabul.
Shilpa Rao is an Indian singer who primarily records songs in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil languages. During her college days, composer Mithoon offered her to record the song "Tose Naina" from Anwar (2007), marking her Hindi debut. "Abacha" from Konchem Ishtam Konchem Kashtam (2009) and "Oru Maalai Neram" from Naan Mahaan Alla (2010) were her debut songs in Telugu and Tamil respectively.
Zila Khan is an Indian Sufi music, Hindustani classical music singer and an actress.
Strings was a Pakistani pop/rock band composed of two members, plus four live band members from Karachi, Pakistan. The band was initially formed by four college students—Bilal Maqsood, Faisal Kapadia (vocals), Rafiq Wazir Ali (synthesizer) and Kareem Bashir Bhoy —in 1988. In 1992 the quartet disbanded, only to make a comeback with Maqsood and Kapadia in 2000. While the initial band rode the new wave of Pakistani pop music, the later lineup ushered a revival in the Pakistani music industry.
Don is the soundtrack album to the 2006 Hindi film Don: The Chase Begins Again, directed by Farhan Akhtar, and starring Shahrukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra and Boman Irani. The music was released on 26 August 2006, on T-Series. It was one of the best-selling Bollywood soundtracks of the year, with 1.5 million units sold in India.
The Dewarists is a part music documentary and part travelogue television series on MTV India. The show casts musicians from various parts of the world, collaborating to create original music while travelling across India. The first season featured a total of ten episodes and featured many musicians, including Imogen Heap, Vishal–Shekhar, Zeb and Haniya, Shantanu Moitra, Swanand Kirkire, Indian Ocean, Mohit Chauhan, Parikrama, Agnee, Shilpa Rao, Shri, Monica Dogra, Rajasthan Roots, Papon, Rabbi Shergill, Shubha Mudgal, Swarathma, MIDIval Punditz, Humble the Poet, Karsh Kale, Baiju Dharmajan, Njeralathu Harigovindan, Raghu Dixit and Rewben Mashangva.
Angaraag Mahanta, known by his stagename Papon, is an Indian playback singer and composer from Assam. Papon has also sung in many languages apart from Assamese like Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Marathi. He is the lead vocalist and founder of the folk-fusion band Papon and The East India Company. He is the son of the noted Assamese singer Khagen Mahanta and Archana Mahanta.
Javed Bashir is a Pakistani playback singer who mainly sings classical songs. Javed has sung songs for many Bollywood movies including Cocktail, Kahaani, Rush, Bombay Talkies, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag,Once Upon ay Time in Mumbai Dobaara! and Bajirao Mastani.
Jasmine Kaur Sandlas is an American playback singer, television personality, performer, songwriter who mainly sings Punjabi songs. Sandlas was born in Jalandhar, India and raised in Stockton, California. Sandlas's first song, "Muskan" (2008), became a hit. In 2014, she began her Bollywood playback singing career with the song "Yaar Na Miley" for the film Kick. Upon its release, "Yaar Na Miley" went viral, topped the charts, and earned Sandlas wide critical acclaim for her singing style. She also received several awards, including the "Most Popular Song of the Year 2016" "Most popular song of year 2016 – PTC Punjabi Film Awards" and Screen Award for Best Female Playback. She was also featured on the TEDx Talks, MTV Coke Studio and Spoken Word platforms.
"Nimbooda" is a traditional folk tune from Rajasthan. It was first popularized by Gazi Khan Barna of the Manganiar community in Rajasthan.
Swaraag is an Indo-Western Fusion band based in Rajasthan, India known for its traditional Rajasthani as well as western music. It comes from Swa-self, raag-raga. The band is founded by Arif Khan and Pratap Singh in 2014. The traditional music instruments such as Khartal-Morchang and Zitar make the band unique. They gained fame through their various live performances.
Mame Khan is an Indian playback and folk singer from Rajasthan, India. He has been playback singer for numerous Hindi films such as Luck By Chance (2009), I Am (2010), No One Killed Jessica (2011), Mirzya (2016) and Sonchiriya (2019). Khan was featured on Coke Studio @ MTV along with Amit Trivedi, the duo performed the track Chaudhary. He received the Best Folk Single Award at Global Indian Music Academy Awards (GiMA) 2016. Mame Khan was first ever Folk artist to walk the Red Carpet at The Cannes Film Festival in 2022 and to perform at the Indian pavilion at Cannes. Mame Khan's most recent folk, Sufi, fusion album named "Desert Rose" was released on 13 October 2022.
Bhanwari Devi is a folk singer from Rajasthan, India. She belongs to the Bhopa community, and has gained wide recognition for her performances of traditional and folk music from Rajasthan.
"Param Sundari" is a 2021 Indian Hindi-language song composed by A. R. Rahman for the film Mimi. The song is written by Amitabh Bhattacharya and sung by Shreya Ghoshal. The song was released as the lead single along with the soundtrack album on 16 July 2021. The song has over 400 million views on YouTube. The song peaked at No. 184 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart.
Jaimin Rajani is a singer-songwriter and documentary filmmaker from Calcutta, India. He writes songs into the traditions of folk and rock music. As a producer, Jaimin has worked on the albums ‘Then & Now’ (2020) by Susmit Bose and ‘White Knight's Tale’ (2019) by High.
