Believe India's BL/UR Imprint Bets On Indian Pop That Ignores Language Borders

Believe India has spent the last few years carving the country up by language. It launched Neue for Punjabi music, Mahra Tora for Haryanvi music and Think Indie for Tamil independent music. Its fourth imprint, BL/UR, launched at a networking event in Mumbai on 21 August, does something different. It is built around a kind of pop rather than a language.

The launch was timed to Believe's 20th anniversary.

The first roster

BL/UR's opening group of artists covers a lot of ground:

• Marathi pop artist Sanju Rathod
• Composer and producer Anurag Saikia
• Rapper and lyricist Farhan Khan
• Desi hip-hop artist Khullar G
• Electronic duo Rusha & Blizza
• Rapper-songwriter Bali

Saikia opened the imprint's account with "Badeela", the first song from Pardesi, a six-track pop EP due later this year. The track uses Rajasthani musical elements and comes out of his travels through the state. Saikia is not a newcomer to big numbers: his "Ishq Hai", from the third season of Mismatched, has passed 269 million streams on Spotify.

The thinking

Akhila Shankar, director of Believe Artist Services for India and South Asia, set out the idea behind the label. "A new generation of Indian artists are growing up without looking at identity as local or global," she said in a statement. "The future of Indian pop will be shaped by the freedom to draw inspiration from everywhere while remaining unmistakably Indian."

Vivek Raina, managing director of Believe India and South Asia, called BL/UR "a natural evolution" of the company's approach to artist development. He said the future of Indian pop lies "in breaking down the boundaries between genres, sounds and influences".

Believe says the imprint will give artists room to work outside standard commercial formats while keeping creative control, with artist development at the centre.

Why the structure matters

The language imprints made sense as a way to go deep in fast-growing regional markets. But they also put each artist in a box. A Marathi pop singer, a rapper and an electronic duo would never sit on the same language label.

BL/UR is an admission that some of the most interesting Indian pop no longer fits those boxes. Saikia is the clearest example, a composer whose biggest hit came from a streaming series and whose new EP draws on Rajasthani music. Grouping them by sensibility rather than language is a bet that listeners are already doing the same thing.

The launch also marks a shift in how Believe presents itself. The company says BL/UR moves it beyond its Artist Services and Development identity towards being led by imprints. In practice, that means Believe putting its own label identity on the music as well as its services behind it.

(Source: Believe press release)