India’s love for music could potentially see them as the world’s biggest music market, pushing the US into second place.
This growing appetite for diversity has led to the Indian music market being a key destination for African music streaming. This is backed up by Believe Music, who are buying a local ‘Punjabi powerhouse’ catalogue from White Hill Music.
The year end music report results are in
According to Luminate’s 2023 year-end report, India’s music market has risen to 463.7 billion more streams than in 2023. Leaving the United States trailing in second place for the first time, with 184 billion new song streams. The report also showed the Hindi-language gaining in the market, making 7.8% of the top 10,000 streaming tracks for 2023.
The Indian market welcomes a growing appreciation for different cultural music, with African exports, having a positive influence for the African music market.
India’s appetite for diversity
India’s music market has played a helping hand in the popularity of Afrobeats with tracks such as ‘Love Nwantiti’ by Ckay, and ‘Calm down’ by Rema, earning platinum certification in the country. This has lead to Ckay and Rema headlining major Indian festivals in Mumbai and New Delhi.
Interestingly, there are now many artists from the all over Africa seeking collaborations, with Indian artists. This can be seen with Burna Boy‘s rise to the number one spot on the Indian music charts, through his collaboration with late Indian rapper Sidhu Moose Wala on the track ‘Mera Na Bu.’
India music market and the Punjabi powerhouse
Believe, a global digital music company, allows independent artists and labels to grow by providing them solutions for their career. After the statistics from Luminate, Believe decided to purchase a ‘Punjabi powerhouse’ catalogue from White Hill Music, an India-based production house and music label.
With Punjabi Music being one of the most popular Indian genres internationally, this deal sees near-future success. The deal also allows Believe to own WHM’s catalogue of songs from established artists from Northern India, including Maninder Buttar, Gurnam Bhullar, Nimrat Khaira, and Happy Raikoti, which could further strengthen the popularity of the India music market.