Feel The Rising Tide Of Carnatic Crossover Through The Music Of 5 Homegrown Artists

Carnatic music comes from South India and has been shaped over centuries through temple practice, court traditions, and oral transmission. Its formal structure began to take shape between the 14th and 16th centuries, with Purandara Dasa laying down a system of exercises and compositions that are still used to train students today. What followed was a vast body of work by composer-saints like Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri, whose compositions established Carnatic music as a living, evolving classical system.

At its core, Carnatic music is built around ragas (melodic frameworks) and talas (time cycles), with a strong emphasis on the voice — even instrumental music follows vocal phrasing and breath. It values pitch, rhythm, and improvisation that stays firmly within structure. Because it is simultaniously both tightly organised and flexible, it has long served as a foundation for musical thinking in India. Today, artists trained in Carnatic music are using this framework to speak about identity, politics and belonging, carrying its grammar into rock, metal, electronic, R&B, jazz, and indie forms. Below are some of our favourite artists pushing Carnatic music into new contemporary directions:

Motherjane helped pioneer a uniquely Carnatic-inflected progressive rock sound across Indian independent music, blending Western rock structures with South Indian classical motifs and rhythms. Their early albums 'Insane Biography' (2002) and 'Maktub' (2008) mix heavy riffs and guitar work with Carnatic sensibilities and native percussion, earned them critical acclaim and cult status across India's nascent rock scene. In recent years the band has continued to evolve with releases like the 2022 EP '1 1 1', where tracks such as 'Awoke' incorporate Carnatic rhythmic phrases into layered, atmospheric compositions.

Thaikkudam Bridge is a Kerala-based collective known for cross-genre fusion anchored in rock, folk, Indian classical and Carnatic influences. Their debut album 'Navarasam' (2015) spans R&B, pop, EDM, death metal and Hindustani elements, all sung in Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi, while subsequent projects like 'Namah' (2019) brought in jazz, trance and collaborations with legends like Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. The band’s ensemble approach lets them mix Carnatic-inspired melodies and classical instruments with aggressive guitar lines and multilingual vocals.

Sid Sriram bridges his early Carnatic vocal training with R&B, soul, pop ,and indie rock across both film and independent music. Known widely for playback singing in Indian cinema, he also released his English LP 'Sidharth' in 2023, blending Carnatic phrasing with contemporary R&B production and indie textures. Tracks like 'Dear Sahana' and 'Friendly Fireshowcase' how he brings raga-inspired vocal ornamentation into genre-hybrid songwriting.

Glasgow-based Kapil Seshasayee uses Carnatic guitar inflections as a core colour in his art-rock, avant-pop and R&B-inflected work, often replicating sitar and veena sounds on guitar. His concept LP 'Laal' draws on Carnatic vocabulary within experimental soundscapes and engages with themes of identity, caste and cinema’s cultural imprint, blending his classical roots with industrial atmospheres and indie aesthetics.

Shilpa Ananth’s music weaves Carnatic roots into soul, jazz, electronic and R&B. Singing in Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Arabic and English, she released her debut album 'Indian Soul' in 2015 and has since been recognised for weaving classical vocal techniques into modern production. Her song, 'Align', exemplifies how she blends Indian melodic sensibilities with contemporary global sounds, creating spacious, hybrid arrangements.

Los Angeles-based Gayathri Krishnan fuses Carnatic-trained vocals with R&B, neo-soul, jazz and blues, using her classical grounding to shape modern expression. On her EP, 'Create to Express' and recent single 'Made It', she layers classical vocal riffs, occasional kalpana swaras and sitar touches over R&B grooves, placing cultural heritage at the heart of personal storytelling and sonic exploration.

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