When Spotify entered India in 2019, it bet that the country’s musical future would extend far beyond Bollywood and film industries. Seven years later, that wager is paying off in unexpected ways.
Today, a song recorded in a bedroom in Kerala can now find listeners in Kansas, Kingston or Kyoto within hours. And that shift is reshaping the Malayalam music scene as well.
Malayalam recently emerged as one of the fastest-growing Indian languages on Spotify, spearheaded by a new generation of independent musicians whose songs are finding audiences well beyond Kerala.
To build on that momentum, Spotify launched RADAR Malayalam on Wednesday — the latest edition of its global artist development programme aimed at helping promising home-grown talent reach a wider listener base through editorial support, marketing and live opportunities.
In a breezy chat with TNIE, Dhruvank Vaidya, head of music & podcasts at Spotify India, discusses why Malayalam music is enjoying a remarkable global surge, the rise of independent artists, and how the platform hopes to nurture the next wave of new voices.
Malayalam is said to be one of the fastest-growing Indian languages on Spotify. What do you think is the reason behind this surge?
When Spotify launched in India seven years ago, we built for this market from the ground up, localising everything from the product and playlists to campaigns and artist partnerships. The goal has always been simple: make Spotify feel like home for the artists and listeners who create and enjoy music in India’s many languages.
Today, we curate over 500 playlists across multiple Indian languages. When Spotify entered the market, over 70 per cent of consumption on the platform was international music. Today, that has completely inverted. In 2025, over 90 per cent of the Top 50 songs on ‘Spotify Wrapped India’ were by local artists.
The growth has come across Punjabi, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Haryanvi and more, and it isn’t staying within borders. Indian artists’ streams in international markets have grown by over 2,000 per cent since 2019, with nearly 50 per cent of royalties generated by Indian artists on Spotify in 2024 coming from outside India.
Malayalam is one of the most exciting examples of that shift. In 2024, we reported that Malayalam music consumption on the platform had grown by more than 5,300 per cent since its launch in India, making it the fastest-growing Indian language on Spotify.
Notably, when ‘Spotify Wrapped 2025’ unveiled its Top 50 Malayalam Songs, 12 were by independent artists. That’s a clear sign that listeners aren’t just discovering artist-first music; they are actively choosing it.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.newindianexpress.com ’
