Indian R&B Artists: 8 Voices Shaping Desi R&B

Indian R&B artists to know in 2026, from Mumbai's Shriya and Bengaluru's Mary Ann Alexander to Sanjeeta Bhattacharya, Raveena and Priya Ragu.

Key facts

Breakthrough: Homegrown wrote in 2025 that no homegrown Indian R&B artist had "managed to meaningfully break through" before the current wave.
Debut EP: Mumbai's Shriya Rao released her four-track debut EP In A Box in January 2025 (Hindustan Times).
RADAR: Sanjeeta Bhattacharya's Everything's Fine? put her on Spotify's global RADAR programme in July 2020 (Wikipedia).
Coachella first: Raveena became the first woman of Indian descent to perform as a solo artist at Coachella, in 2022 (Wikipedia).
Viral hit: Dhruv's 2019 single Double Take went viral on TikTok two years after release and reached No. 1 in the Philippines and Thailand in 2021 (Wikipedia).

Indian R&B artists have spent years in the shadow of rap and indie pop, but a new wave is changing that. Homegrown argued in January 2025 that India had never produced a homegrown R&B artist who truly broke through, and that "in 2025, that may be about to change." This guide covers eight voices. Three are based in India: Mary Ann Alexander, Shriya and Sanjeeta Bhattacharya. The other five are diaspora artists whose Indian roots run through their sound: Raveena, Priya Ragu, Dhruv, Raja Kumari and Avara. Every fact below comes from a named source.

More facts

Homegrown wrote in 2025 that no homegrown Indian R&B artist had "managed to meaningfully break through" before the current wave.
Mumbai's Shriya Rao released her four-track debut EP In A Box in January 2025 (Hindustan Times).
Sanjeeta Bhattacharya's Everything's Fine? put her on Spotify's global RADAR programme in July 2020 (Wikipedia).
Raveena became the first woman of Indian descent to perform as a solo artist at Coachella, in 2022 (Wikipedia).
Dhruv's 2019 single Double Take went viral on TikTok two years after release and reached No. 1 in the Philippines and Thailand in 2021 (Wikipedia).

Why R&B took longer in India

Homegrown's profile of Mary Ann Alexander is blunt about the history. American R&B found mainstream appeal in India in the 1990s and early 2000s, "but there weren't really any homegrown R&B artists who ever managed to meaningfully break through." The magazine sees a new wave of R&B, jazz and soul artists who tie the genre to their own stories. They sit within the wider independent scene we track in our best Indian independent artists of 2026.

Based in India

Mary Ann Alexander

Homegrown describes Mary Ann Alexander as a self-made, Bengaluru-based singer and songwriter. Since 2020 she has released solo work and collaborated with artists including Sid Sriram. Her sound mixes her Malayali identity with what she grew up hearing, from Disney songs and Tamil film music to Brent Faiyaz and Hiatus Kaiyote. She told the magazine that her father is a singer and that she spent time in his studio from a very young age. She started by posting covers on YouTube and Instagram, studied Visual Communication, and then began teaching singing. Homegrown credits Instagram Reels with helping her find young listeners. For more on the city, read our Bengaluru indie scene guide.

Shriya

Shriya Rao performs as Shriya. Hindustan Times calls her a Mumbai-based R&B singer who has written and composed more than 15 original songs, mostly in English R&B and contemporary pop. Two of them came out in early 2024 through DayOne, which the paper describes as a Sony Music India sub-label. Her debut EP, In A Box, arrived in January 2025 with four tracks: Her, I'm Not Alright, Are You Down and Dream About It. Rolling Stone India said the EP moves between pop and R&B and deals with heartbreak and mental health. Hindustan Times adds that she directed the video for On My Mind and did backing vocals and arrangement for the Netflix film Nadaaniyan. Mumbai's wider scene is covered in our Mumbai indie scene guide.

Sanjeeta Bhattacharya

Sanjeeta Bhattacharya grew up in a Bengali family in New Delhi and graduated from Berklee College of Music. According to Wikipedia, her music mixes R&B, indie folk and Latin styles with lyrics in several languages. She has played the Panama Jazz Festival, Hornbill Festival and NH7 Weekender. Her single Everything's Fine? put her on Spotify's global emerging-artist programme RADAR in July 2020. In 2014, at Berklee, she led a tribute performance to A. R. Rahman with 109 performers from 32 countries. She has also acted in the Netflix series Feels Like Ishq and the 2023 film Jawan. In her own words, "In school, I sang RnB, pop, choir music and so on."

The diaspora

Raveena

Raveena Kaur Aurora was born in Massachusetts in 1993 to Punjabi immigrant parents and grew up in a Sikh household, Wikipedia reports. Punjabi was her first language. Her music blends R&B, soul, jazz and pop with instrumentation influenced by Indian music. Her debut album, Lucid (2019), was released independently. NPR called it a mix of "contemporary R&B with traditions from the South Asian diaspora," and she played an NPR Tiny Desk Concert that December. Her Warner Records album Asha's Awakening (2022) is a concept album told by a Punjabi space princess, and Rolling Stone ranked it 84th among the 100 best albums of 2022. At Coachella 2022 she became the first woman of Indian descent to perform there as a solo artist. Her third album, Where the Butterflies Go in the Rain, came out in 2024.

Priya Ragu

Priya Ragu was born in Switzerland in 1986 to Sri Lankan Tamil parents. She sang in her father's band, which played Kollywood film songs. She worked for Swiss International Air Lines while recording in her spare time. With her producer brother, Japhna Gold, she created what the pair called "Ragu Wavy," a mix of R&B, soul, hip-hop and traditional Tamil music. Good Love 2.0 came out in October 2020, was played on BBC Radio's Future Sounds, and led to a deal with Warner Music. Her mixtape damnshestamil closes with Santhosam, which her mother wrote. Vogue India named her one of six musicians about to blow up in 2021.

Dhruv

Dhruv Sharma was born in London in 1999 to an Indian Hindu family and moved to Singapore at the age of two. He put demos on SoundCloud as a teenager and later studied at Yale. His single Double Take, released in May 2019, went viral on TikTok two years later. It reached No. 1 in the Philippines and Thailand and debuted on the Billboard Global Excl. US chart. He signed to RCA in October 2021, supported Joji on a 2022 North American tour, and released his debut album, Private Blizzard, in August 2024.

Raja Kumari

Raja Kumari, born Svetha Yallapragada Rao in California to a Telugu family, has written with Fall Out Boy, Iggy Azalea and Fifth Harmony. She is a trained dancer in Kuchipudi, Kathak and Bharatanatyam. She worked with Divine on Roots and City Slums in 2018 and appeared as a judge in Gully Boy. Her 2025 album, Kashi to Kailash, mixed Sanskrit chants with hip-hop and electronica and was released on her independent label, Godmother Records. That year she also featured on Durga Trance, from Siddhant Bhatia's Sounds of Kumbha, which was nominated for Best Global Music Album at the 68th Grammy Awards.

Avara

Stereofox describes Avara as a US-based R&B singer and producer with Indian roots. Her October 2024 single PARADIGM, with Deb Fan and violinist Nina Woods, passed one million streams across services. Stereofox reported plans for a collaborative mixtape in February 2025, followed by a fusion EP of Indian music and R&B later that year.

Where to start

Start with Everything's Fine? by Sanjeeta, In A Box by Shriya and Lucid by Raveena. Add Good Love 2.0 by Priya Ragu and Double Take by Dhruv to hear how far desi R&B now travels.

FAQ

Who are the best Indian R&B artists right now?

In India, Mary Ann Alexander, Shriya and Sanjeeta Bhattacharya stand out. Among diaspora artists, Raveena, Priya Ragu, Dhruv, Raja Kumari and Avara all draw on Indian roots.