It’s a good time to be an indie musician. Spotify’s Indie India playlist has just 75 songs, but it’s been saved over 8,87,000 times. Last year, the majority of nominations at the IRAA (Indian Recording Arts Academy) Awards came from independent artists. Lollapalooza India’s 2026 line-up features Gini, Pho, Nate08, and the bands Excise Dept, Pacifist, and Still in Therapy. Indie sounds are emerging in hip-hop, rap, pop and Urdu rock. In a country that’s hung up on Bollywood tunes, this is wonderful news for the little guys on the fringe.
“We’re in a phase where Bollywood music is starting to sound the same. So, listeners are hungry for something different,” says musician Viepsa Arora. There are new collabs, new collectives, and exciting new hustles on the scene. Tune in.
Love and other drugs
Kayan, aka Ambika Nayak, 28, Mumbai
{{/usCountry}}Kayan, aka Ambika Nayak, 28, Mumbai
{{/usCountry}}In indie music, Kayan is something of a celebrity. The singer-songwriter-DJ opened for Ed Sheeran in Shillong in February. She was part of Lollapalooza India’s inaugural line-up in 2023 and featured on Forbes India’s 30 Under 30 list that year. She’s built a rep for fierce, soulful music. Oh, and fans can’t get enough of her glittery bodysuits, rhinestone corsets and bodycon outfits.
Kayan started writing and performing original music with her band, Kimochi Youkai, in 2017. In the pandemic, she wrote and produced her first song, Please, under her Kayan persona. It’s a lo-fi R&B track about heartbreak - “music tailored to the mood of the moment,” she says. It didn’t go immediately viral, but when her next few singles were released — Cool Kids, Be Alright, On My Own, DFWM — she had thousands of streams. By the end of 2021, she was one of the most-streamed artists on Spotify India, had a VH1 feature for Be Alright, and was collabing with artists such as OAFF.
Five years on, everything’s changed, says Kayan. Everybody wants to be an indie artist, and everybody wants to sing about love. So, she’s pivoted to a sound that is less melancholy and more upbeat. She still writes about love – good love, bad love, okay love, toxic love – but there’s a “You got this” quality to it now. Her new five-track EP, Is Love Enough, plays out like the five stages of grief. There’s closure at the end.
It’s a risk. “So much about being an indie artist is just getting things done yourself, and just being you no matter if it’s cool or not,” she says. “My music makes people feel that they’ve got it, that they can do it too. It’s about loving yourself while still figuring things out.”
But the industry is paying attention. Two years ago, Universal Music India and talent agency Represent Management formed a partnership to promote independent artists. They put her on their roster. Spotify’s Radar, which champions emerging artists, picked up her early releases. At the Ed Sheeran concert in Shillong in February, the 30,000 people in the audience cheered as much for her almost as they did for Sheeran.
Kayan now has a manager, a stylist, and a rotating crew of indie musician friends-turned-producers. But she worries about losing her indie cred. “My only definition of success is if I can get someone through a bad day.”
Minding her language
Viepsa Arora, 24, Delhi
Arora is constantly on the lookout for ear-worms: Catchy lyrics, snappy bridges that get stuck in your head. “Putting them on a Reel is the surest way an indie musician can get recognised,” she says. “In the song, Fukumean, American rapper Gunna just goes ‘Eyah’? It’s weird, but it made the song viral. That’s the best way to speak to people today.”
For her Punjabi song, Bekadran, Arora says the word (which means “an apathetic person”) was stuck in her head for such a long time that she had to get rid of it by writing it into a song. But underneath the hooks, Arora’s music rages against the establishment. It’s probably why Gen Zs tune in. “We’re the type of generation that belongs everywhere and nowhere at once,” Arora says. “We have both ghazals and Sabrina Carpenter songs on our playlists. Indie artists are taking advantage of this by blending genres and influences.” Her recent song, Turbulence, is about the conflict that comes from wanting to break free, but still holding on to tradition. “Indian classical vocals form a background for lyrics about the hypocrisy of patriarchy and religion.”
Arora recently played at Saket Social in Delhi, the 18-to-20-year-old women in the crowd bopped along to her profanity-laden song, So Ja, as if it was a feminist anthem. “It was intended to be a sad-girl song when I wrote it,” she says.
Music distribution company TuneCore’s Indian Independent Music Report 2025 notes a threefold increase in Punjabi indie releases. Arora now creates a fusion of Hindi and Punjabi pop, with elements of electronic music and R&B. One song, Turbulence, which came out three months ago, has over 100K streams on Spotify, and is trending in Brazil, Philippines, the US, and Mexico. But even when her songs don’t perform well, she’s unfazed. “As you grow as an artist, your songs become more valuable in retrospect. That’s what I tell myself each time I put out a song that doesn’t perform as I intended.”
Committing to the act
Aarifah Rebello, 32, Pune
Rebello grew up in a family that “used every excuse to sing or perform”. At festivals and family gatherings, someone would be strumming a guitar or picking out a tune on the keyboard. She learnt to play the guitar and drums at age 16. So, releasing her first single, Now She Knows, in 2022, felt like a natural progression. It took her a year to figure out how to record, produce, and distribute it. “Remember how Billie Eilish started out by recording songs in her bedroom?” she says. “It feels like that.”
Rebello says she found their voice in the pandemic, because it gave her the time and opportunity to be creative. But producing a song isn’t cheap. Now She Knows cost about ₹50,000 because she had to hire a studio, a guitarist, a bassist and a mixing technician. “Depending on the song, you could end up spending a few lakhs.”
With no label to serve as a sounding board, it’s even scarier. “At first, I was just tiptoeing around, worrying about being less than perfect. But making that first big mistake changes everything.” Hers was trying to record her first few songs in the studio when she still wasn’t confident of herself. She’d record with the lights off, but sounded so nervous, the recording was unusable. Now, she makes sure to joke around and build a rapport with the sound engineer and producer before getting to work.
Like other indie artists, Rebello draws on her life for her music. Her discography has a little bit of everything: Folk music, soft rock, disco, soul, and undertones of gospel and country. But the personal lyrics are what resonate with listeners in a market full of packaged tracks. Now She Knows (2022) is about growing into one’s skin and not letting fear stop you from blooming. Anyway (2023), about her partner, is about unexpected tragedy and how humour can help one cope.
For the moment, Rebello is ploughing all the money she makes back into her music. But there’s more support for indies now. Ctrl ALT Delete, a crowdfunded music festival, and New World Order, launch new talent. She received a grant of ₹1.5 lakh from the Serendipity Arts Festival this year, which will help fund her next single or EP. And she’s watching how fast the scene has changed. “Being raw and unpolished was okay a few years ago. It was the hallmark of being indie. Now, you’re expected to get it right on the first go.”
From HT Brunch, September 6, 2025
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