The world only knows Indian music from Bollywood’s “filmy” ballads and cinematic love songs. Music in India seems to enter the world in few forms other than through the cinema industry. However, Bollywood does an incomplete job of representing the music of India just as the iTunes charts would to America—representing only the big, mainstream record artists. Under the wraps of a Bollywood-obsessed entertainment scene, there is a burgeoning independent Indian music industry that is teeming with life and passion. It is young, determined, and rebellious. This indie music industry surfaces many interesting questions about art’s long–standing struggle against capitalist values and the role of anti-establishment industries in societies like India’s.
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