2000s in Music - Asia - India

India

The Indian music industry was previously dominated by the Filmi music of Bollywood for much of the late 20th century. The 2000s saw an increasing popularity of independent Indian pop music that could compete with Bollywood film music. Indian pop music began distinguishing itself from mainstream Bollywood music with its fusion of Indian and non-Indian sounds, which later had on influence on Bollywood music itself. Indian pop has itself been partly influenced by the Asian Underground scene emerging in the United Kingdom among British Asian artists such as Bally Sagoo, Apache Indian, Panjabi MC, Raghav and the Rishi Rich Project (featuring Rishi Rich, Jay Sean and Juggy D). India has one of the largest music markets in the world, though like other developing nations, suffers from high levels of piracy.

Indian music has also had an increasing influence on popular music in the Western world. The music of South Asia has influenced Europe's pop mainstream as acts like Björk, Bananarama, Erasure, and Siouxsie and the Banshees all released singles or remixes featuring South Asian instrumentation. Indian music has also influenced mainstream American hip hop, R&B and urban music in the 2000s, including artists/producers such as Timbaland, Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, Truth Hurts, The Black Eyed Peas, Missy Elliott and Britney Spears. According to DJ Green Lantern, "Indian beats have now become a fixture on the R&B scene". Several Hollywood musical films such as Moulin Rouge! have incorporated Bollywood songs, while several Indian music composers have gained international fame, particularly A. R. Rahman who, having sold over 300 million records worldwide, is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. M.I.A., a Sri Lankan electronic artist incorporates Bollywood songs in her music.