Getting louder: music, “feedback loops” and social change in the Tamil transnational music scene

ABSTRACT

This article explores the “feedback loops” that constitute the Tamil transnational music scene. Comprising of musical, social, economic and political networks between South India, Sri Lanka and their diasporas, I consider how new music production loops around to highlight the multiplicity and fluidity of the scene. Having been built on practices of carnatic, devotional, folk, Kollywood music, hip-hop and R&B, these feedback loops are entangled in politics of belonging. Social hierarchies are being resisted, but also reiterated, by second-generation diasporic and South Asia-based artists through their creative practice. This article examines feedback loops that amplify issues such as casteism and ethnic violence through the rise of Tamil transnational independent music. While these feedback loops are strengthening the economy of cross-border music-making and have the potential for social change, the multidirectional loops also have the potential to reproduce the hierarchies that they have the intention to change.

KEYWORDS:

• Tamil diaspora
• music scene
• independent music
• social change
• feedback loops

In recent years, the Tamil transnational music scene has been “getting louder” in South Asia, the Tamil diaspora and beyond. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, this music scene has seen an escalation of production and reach and a movement towards issues of social change. In this article, I explore the current Tamil transnational music scene through the analogy of “feedback loops” which musically and socially constitute the scene. The analogy alludes to the sonic element of the scene, represents cultural circulation across global space, and signifies cultural exchange as well as social stability and change (Novak, 2013, pp. 149–152). It also highlights the shift from the linear “diaspora” and “homeland” relationship to indicate the multiplicity and fluidity of the scene, reflective of the highly-dispersed and complex trajectories of Tamil migration and resultant diaspora. Through the sonic and social networks, interactions and changes in this scene, I consider the decentring of the hegemonic position of Chennai, the hub of carnatic music, Kollywood and Tamil vernacular genres. I examine the nature of new music production that loops in the transnational scene and consider the socio-musical hierarchies at play. The article examines examples of transnational Tamil independent music produced across national borders and their amplification of social and political inequalities in and through their production. These examples are the song “Enjoy Enjaami”, the “Mrithangam Raps” series and “Made in Jaffna” album. I argue that at this significant moment, amplified through the immediacy of social media, these loops are not only strengthening the economy of cross-border Tamil music-making, but are also resisting and reiterating social and political hierarchies in South India and the diaspora. This article shows the complexity of transnational music production across different socio-political contexts and markets, in that the multidirectional loops also have the potential to reproduce the hierarchies that they have the intention to change.¹

Power, belonging and change

Tamil music-making is highly transnational and feeds back and forth from South India, Sri Lanka and its diasporas, though Chennai is its musical centre. In the transnational networks among musicians, diasporic communities and transnational music industries, Chennai can be referred to as a metropolitan hub, consisting of interacting and overlapping human, spatial and institutional hubs (Kiwan & Meinhof, 2011). The South Indian city became a UNESCO Music City in 2017, largely based on the Margazhi Music Festival (Mani, 2020, p. 103) – a month-long festival of carnatic music performance that attracts musicians and audiences from around India, Sri Lanka, the diaspora and beyond. UNESCO statistics (2018) state that the Margazhi festival spans over 1500 performances across the city and generates US$6.4 billion in revenue, thereby contributing to around 30% of the gross cultural creative economy (US$20 billion) (Mani, 2020, p. 113). In addition to the festival, Chennai is also home of Kollywood, the multimillion-dollar Tamil movie industry (Mani, 2020, p. 120) and India's largest regional-language film repertoires (Getter, 2014, p. 60).

The Tamil musical economy based out of Chennai is socially complex as it has been entangled with pervasive power hierarchies, particularly relating to caste, gender and national background. Colonialism can often be traced as the catalyst for these power hierarchies and the transnational flows that enable diasporic musical production. As Dhiraj Murthy points out, “musical engagements between diaspora and “homeland” are usually products of long, often colonially mediated, histories”, demonstrated by the British Raj exporting and (re)importing subcontinental sounds with the first subcontinental gramophone recordings by the British Raj (Murthy, 2007, p. 147). Similarly, HMV was the only record label to produce a sustained output of South Indian music and was largely responsible for creating a Tamil vernacular gramophone market (Hughes, 2002, p. 449).

Transnational musical networks have, therefore, been established between the UK and South India well before postcolonial mass migration. Sri Lankan Tamil and South Indian arts have been closely connected throughout the twentieth century and highlight the long history of transnationality and cross-border Tamil solidarity through music, politics and in wider society between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka (Sykes, 2018; Reed, 2010). With ethnic discrimination in Sri Lanka, Tamil nationalist and anti-caste movements of the twentieth century resonated across the Palk Strait, along with flows of music and musicians. The relationship between Sri Lanka's Tamils and India from the late twentieth century has been particularly complex, stemming from the brutality of the Indian Peace Keeping Force towards Tamils on the island and the subsequent assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE, as well as the solidarity of many in Tamil Nadu with Tamils in Sri Lanka. Despite this complex relationship, cross-border musical interactions continue. In interviews with first-generation Sri Lankan Tamil diasporic musicians, however, I have been told how they experienced exclusion and felt as though they were “second class citizens” in India, working exceptionally hard to build up networks and reputations and/or having to pay for performance opportunities and self-fund musical projects in the scene. One musician told me that while they feel they have compromised their musical career by migrating to the UK, they feel freedom from discrimination based on their Sri Lankan and non-Brahmin background compared to their experience in India.

Power inequalities and hierarchies, particularly in terms of caste and gender, are highly apparent in and through carnatic music. For instance, the Brahminsation of carnatic music followed a process of urbanisation of the arts from the courts and temples of Southern India and a removal from their custodians. The devadasi custodians of the arts – women and non-Brahmins – were marginalised under colonial rule through the devadasi prevention act of 1947 brought in by the British administration to abolish the artisan – patronage system (Subramanian, 2006, pp. 120–121). Now firmly rooted in the city's sabhas, the genre and the scene was patronised by, and became a musical practice of, urban, middle class Brahmins (Weidman, 2006, p. 80). The exclusivity of carnatic music was also bolstered by HMV targeting wealthy middle classes who could afford gramophones and records in the 1910–1920s: carnatic music held the key to reaching their targeted upper class South Indian audiences and therefore the genre was privileged as “a commercial strategy to tap into the existing networks of elite patronage and music appreciation” (Hughes, 2002, p. 449). Caste discrimination is regularly experienced by the non-Brahmin musicians I have interviewed, and gender, religion and nationality are also factors by which artists and audiences are marginalised. The socio-political context differ, however, in the case of Sri Lanka and in the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora, where carnatic music is not Brahmin-dominated, as the musical form has become a broader symbol of Tamil cultural identity in relation to Sinhalese majority culture (Reed, 2010; Sykes, 2018) and in many “host” cultures in the diaspora.

Action towards inclusivity is taking place, however. T. M. Krishna, a carnatic vocalist, is highlighting the need for change in the carnatic and broader Tamil music scene. His anti-caste and anti-communal activism is rippling out into the diaspora, primarily through his musical performance, social media and publications. Krishna has also curated fringe events featuring marginalised musics taking place alongside the Margazhi Music Festival. However, Charulatha Mani points out that the concept of Chennai as a Music City is based on an exclusively carnatic music mainstream festival, despite being home to diverse folk and popular genres such as parai drumming – originally performed during funerals – and gaana – an urban folk genre – which are historical, cultural and linguistic markers of the city (2020, p. 105). These genres are also socio-musically aligned with Dalit caste communities and are integral to the city's soundscape but are not showcased as such, consequentially effecting showcasing frameworks, branding and economic impact of music on the city, particularly with regards to governmental policy, tourism and employment (Mani, 2020, pp. 104–105). However, inclusive initiatives in the city suggest that “Chennai's music city identity is currently in flux … from a Karnatik-centric scene to a broader, and more diverse, scene”, reflective in “the policies and strategies that support Chennai's music cultures aligning on the verge of major change” (Mani, 2020, p. 104). Initiatives such as the Chennai Sangamam festival, a large-scale, state-promoted festival of that brings folk musicians to perform during Pongal and most recently the Margazhiyil Makkalisai, a festival that coincides with the final week of the Margazhi Festival, provide platforms for marginalised musical forms and musicians across the city. For instance, in 2021, the festival comprised of performances of gaana, oppari and parai drumming, culminating in a performance by The Casteless Collective at the Madras Music Academy. The iconic institution, usually only occupied with carnatic concerts, is the pinnacle in the Brahmin-dominated and caste discriminatory music scene in Chennai (Subramanian, 2006). The social impact of the group's performance, whose music speaks out against the inequality of the caste system and the oppression of women and combines gaana, rap, rock and parai, therefore became even louder considering the fact that an anti-caste band performed musical styles that disrupt the socio-musical hierarchies intrinsic in the venue's identity. Both the festival and The Casteless Collective are initiatives of film director, Pa Ranjith.

While music director, Ilaiyaraaja, established his innovative sound by combining folk music characteristics and instruments with carnatic music and Western classical music since the 1980s, marginalised genres are getting increasingly louder in mainstream popular culture. For instance, oppari and parai drumming is increasingly incorporated into Tamil cinema soundtracks and through initiatives such as the recently established folk and independent Folk Marley label by urumi drummer and folk and playback singer, Anthony Dasan. Similarly gaana, the rhythmic, fast-paced song genre with lively percussion in triple-pulse beats, is widely used in Kollywood songs but has previously come under critique as “noise” (Getter, 2014, p. 67). Like kuthu, the genre is now integrated into the Kollywood sound, with music directors and singers such as Deva, Gana Bala and Santhosh Narayanan, bringing the style to the forefront of their soundtracks, and Isaivani, Gana Balachandar and The Casteless Collective bringing the style to independent music. Gaana, originating in North Chennai and aligned with Dalit background musicians living in “slum” areas (Diwakar, 2021, p. 64), is popular in the UK diaspora, particularly reflected in the gaana dance troupes and competitions among university Tamil societies. While gaana in Chennai refers to the music genre, gaana in the diaspora generally refers to dance practices based on creative interpretations of gaana and kuthu tracks in Kollywood films. Described as “an Indian Tamil dance style, developed through popular film”, gaana has become so widely distributed within the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora that it has led it to be identified with Sri Lankan (and Indian) Tamils around the world (Rudisill, 2019, p. 188). The diasporic interest in these genres shows the potential for marginalised musics in the transnational musical economy.

The inclusion of diasporic artists and engagement with diasporic experience in popular culture in Tamil Nadu is also getting louder. Tamil cinema is increasingly focusing on the Tamil diaspora, such as in Kabali (2016) which focuses on Malaysian labourers and Jagame Thandiram (2021) centred on Sri Lankan Tamils in London. Diasporic musicians and actors are also gaining success in the industry, such as Malaysian Tamil rapper Yogi B, British Eelam Tamil² singer and actor, Teejay Arunasalam and Germany-based Sri Lankan Tamil, S Nirujan who appeared on reality show, Super Singer in 2015. These examples reflect Mani's assertion that “Chennai is on the cusp of forging a meaningful relationship between creative musical cultures, communities, and social justice” (2020, p. 114). The recent changes in Chennai therefore paves the way for the feedback loops, however, change in these instances has been enabled by authority figures in the film industry and carnatic music, such as directors, music directors and high-profile artists.

Tamil transnational music and “feedback loops”: migration, diaspora and the musical economy

While Chennai is the economic and musical hub for carnatic music, Kollywood and Tamil independent music, these forms are produced, consumed and reproduced in multiple directions around the world. The Tamil transnational music scene is geographically highly-dispersed, and socially complex and diverse. The scene's significant multidirectional cultural production and consumption and global circulation of Tamil cultural repertoires reflects the complex Tamil migration trajectories and diasporas across time and space (Velayutham, 2008, p. 181). Tamil migration has a long and varied history, from the 3rd century migration of Tamils from South India to Sri Lanka, the 8th century expansion of South Indian kingdoms to Southeast Asia, the colonial labour migration to Sri Lanka, South Africa, Southeast Asia, islands in the Indian ocean and the Caribbean to the postcolonial migration of professional and skilled labour migrants to Euro-America and the movement of temporary non-skilled workers to the Gulf States, Singapore and Malaysia (Velayutham, 2008, p. 182). The mid-late twentieth century also saw diverse migratory trajectories from Sri Lanka (Daniel, 1996, pp. 155–160), most notably the migration of Tamil refugees with the onset of the Sri Lankan civil war, stretching from India, Southeast Asia, Australia and North America to the UK and other European nations. The historical contexts of Tamil migration have therefore created a complex and continually transforming diaspora, far from homogenous or unified, with varying affinities to the “homeland/s” (Velayutham, 2008, pp. 181–183). However, the construction of and commitment to transnational Tamil cultural identities nevertheless drives a creative economy. It is significant to highlight Tamil migration and diaspora to understand the scale of the music scene and the sonic and social networks and interactions that loop within it.

Here I refer to “feedback loops” in relation to the transnational musical interactions and diasporic networks that constitute the current Tamil transnational music scene. Feedback loops intersect with “diasporic interculture” – “which emerges from the linkages that subcultures set up across national boundaries” (Slobin, 1993, p. 64). Based on Appadurai's scapes (1996), diasporic interculture crosscuts and overlaps the superculture of the nation-state's hegemonic cultural system and subculture of embedded units and “describes specifically the trajectories of those musics, music makers, music consumers, and music industries that ‘extend beyond the nation-state bounds’” (Slobin, 1993, p. 15; Zheng, 2010, p. 37). The production and consumption of Tamil transnational music is emerging beyond Tamil diasporic formations, overlapping into and becoming audible in global music industries. The analogy importantly highlights that output is always connected to input, and the complexities of this, in the case of a complex and highly-dispersed diaspora. The circulation within these loops does not simply refer to movement and exchange, or “progress from one place, person, or sociocultural context to another. Circulation is a nexus of cultural production that defines the things, places, and practices within its loops”, thereby indicating that output is always connected back to input in transformative cycles of feedback (Novak, 2013, pp. 17–18). It is precisely within the nexus of these multidirectional and multiple loops of circulation, interaction, and production that the music scene is generated and where the attachment of identity and culture to bounded spaces such as the nation is interrogated (Roy, 2010, p. 12). Rather than refer to the flow or circulation of Tamil independent music, thinking through feedback loops aims to shift the focus of music production and collaboration to the linkages across borders and across local scenes within the transnational Tamil musical economy, thereby signalling to the multidirectionality, multiplicity and fluidity of production and consumption that generates the scene. The analogy of “feedback loops” encapsulates both the movement of music and momentum of cultural production within the complex structures of transnational diasporic musical and social networks and interactions that constitute the Tamil musical economy.

The loops also refer to a shift from the centre-periphery relationship between the “homeland/s” and diaspora – with Chennai as the unequivocal centre and the diaspora as the periphery – through the multidirectional inputs and outputs of musical production. Cultural production and consumption has been explored in relation to the multiple sites of productive economies linking Bollywood cinema to a broader network of transitional societies and diasporic communities and “tracking” its paths of movement to characterise the configurations that emerge at various sites of intersection within a global flow of images (Kaur and Sinha, 2005, p. 23). Similarly, Rajinder Dudrah uses the notion of “travel” to allow for consideration into future routes, circuits and possibilities from Bollywood and to consider forms of imaginative socio-cultural and actual border crossings in and around the films (2012, p. 9). Importantly, amid the ascent of its visibility, Dudrah makes sense of Bollywood's relationship to the idea of diaspora, exploring the non-linear and disjunctive ways that allow for a more complex and heterogeneous standpoint in relation to the “homeland” and “diaspora”, and significantly avoids a simplistic relationship “where the homeland produces Bollywood which is then taken up wholesale, or otherwise, by the diaspora” (2012, p. 9). This instead allows spaces for “larger dynamic circuits, routes and distributions” that span to non-South Asian heritage audiences (Dudrah, 2012, p. 8). Bhangra similarly moves across the world in real and virtual spaces, beyond homeland-diasporic and ethnic networks, becoming increasingly audible in global pop. Anjali Gera Roy refers to the “flows” of Bhangra to and from India to investigate the meaning of globalisation from the subcontinent (2010, p. 2) and to problematise and break national, social and geographical boundaries “thereby revising the relation between culture, space and identity” (2010, p. 4). Bhangra's multidirectional flows, facilitated by digital networks, similarly disrupt “the myth of origins in which diasporas have been positioned in relation to the homelands”, particularly in transnationalised musical production as diverse Bhangra genres are produced simultaneously across Bhangra sites (Roy, 2010, pp. 11–13). This shift is also mirrored in “local” popular musics and global music industries, as Johansson argues that understanding the development of music through circulation emphasises continuous “feedback loops”, which is more fitting than traditional diffusion models where styles of music have a point of origin and spread elsewhere in the world (2020, p. 5). Feedback loops therefore represent the multidirectionality, multiplicity and fluidity of transnational musical production rather than the linear abstractions (Johansson, 2020, p. 28) or “circular flow” from “homeland” to the diaspora (Terada, 2014, pp. 66–68). Feedback loops serve to show a decentring of Chennai in the transnational scene, shifting instead to the transnational networks and the nexus of the loops.

The loops also hold the potential for the resistance and reiteration of socio-musical hierarchies. As the loops are multilinear, networked and travel between nodes and links, they have the potential to destabilise the meaning of centre, margin, hierarchy and linearity as relations between places (Roy, 2010, p. 16). In the case of Bhangra, which emanates from ethnic, caste, class and sectarian margins, Roy argues that the flows of music and artists across Bhangra's sites, and their digital visibility, enables them to intervene in the cultural politics of nations (Roy, 2010, p. 12) and therefore hold the potential to disrupt traditional hierarchies and boundaries. Bhangra's acquisition of global visibility, as it is circulated through the global popular culture space and re-enters India, destabilises high-low hierarchies of the Indian great and little traditions and national and regional popular culture in which regional and folk musics are relegated to “secondariness”, therefore the global space benefits local vernacular traditions to emerge from beneath the Indian cultural master-narrative (Roy, 2010, p. 16). While there is potential for change in and through musical production within the loops, it does not become completely deterritorialised or detached from the local socio-political contexts in which they take place: artists create from their localities and therefore local markets and socio-political landscapes shape the socio-musical interactions within them. The analogy therefore also refers to the potential feeding back of socio-musical hierarchies into the loops – they provide the potential for both positive change and for the reproduction of hierarchies via the loop.

Similarly, there are limits on the possibilities of these loops in relation to market economies in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka and the diaspora, as demonstrated by the collaborations that take place and the artists who are invited to participate. As Johansson points out, “[w]ithin networks of circulation, there are locations that continuously influence the overall system” (2020, p. 5) – and Chennai, as the home of Kollywood and carnatic music, maintains influence over the transnational scene. The loops are still shaped by the economic and cultural dominance of Kollywood and carnatic music because their commercial success has created the possibility for these loops to exist, along with the interaction, circulation and consumption within them, both in the subcontinent and the diaspora.

Tamil music is gaining volume in the global mainstream from multiple directions as well as amplifying social and political issues, therefore feedback loops also indicate a change in dynamic: they “can represent the enclosed coherence of social networks, as well as the tipping points that drive systems into interaction, collapse, and change” (Novak, 2013, p. 149). Positive feedback loops are those which disrupt the social equilibrium through transformation and amplification: the loops get louder “[w]hen feedback becomes generative of something new – in the case of audio circuits, when it becomes sound in itself” (Novak, 2013, p. 152). While negative feedback establishes cultural stability and continuity – and therefore reflects the networks, musical and social interactions and communicative flows that have established cultural continuity, positive feedback amplifies change with each cycle, moving away from social equilibrium to emphasise the cumulative effects of newness and change (Novak, 2013, p. 152). The current rise in transnational Tamil independent music reflects, in part, these positive feedback loops, as new musical production amplifies sound beyond Tamil networks and social inequalities across borders. The levels of interaction and amplification of positive feedback loops reflect the immediacy, acceleration and multidirectionality of transnational musical production afforded by social media and streaming platforms, while also having the potential to both challenge and reassert socio-musical power hierarchies from multiple directions.

An example of this change in dynamic is the creative economy in the Tamil music scene in the UK and the transnational cultural practice built on “the homing desire” (Brah, 1996). In terms of carnatic, Tamil devotional and Kollywood music, demand has been generated from the desire for first generation parents to enculturate their children into Tamil culture and diasporic Tamil identities are constructed, in part, through cultural practice and continuation. A London-based music teacher, who themselves arrived in the UK as a refugee from Sri Lanka explained that this is a way of “becoming one again” after the “scattering” of forced migration. While musical practice is also significant for South Indian diasporic families, they told me that

We are missing our part of the country, our culture … we are scared of losing our traditions, so we are unlimited in the way we are pushing our children. Our generation has lost a lot, education, wealth, independence, happiness, our aims; our life in a way. We had been living in our country, our land, we had to depart from that part of the country and make a new life, so we are scared of losing our culture.

As a result, there is a great deal of community-based investment in cultural practice. Similarly, the generation of a transnational “ethnic economy” (Dwyer, 2010, p. 88), functioning within UK diasporic communities and directed towards other Euro-American and Australian diasporic localities as well as South Asia, is largely based on the concept of Tamil diasporic culture and identity. The generation of economies around the construction of diasporic identities is particularly enabled by the immediacy of cultural flows and improved communication and travel, resulting in the intensity of ethnic networks. For instance, Singh notes how “[c]ultural flows in real time have led to sophisticated niche consumerism with a heightened sense of consciousness of Indianness fostered by growing transnational networks and deliberate efforts to construct overarching identities” (2003, p. 5). Similarly, Bhangra has a significant role in connecting Panjabi diasporas and the homeland and in consolidating a transnational Panjabi identity, which has been appropriated in the construction of a Panjabi nationalism; it is simultaneously exclusive and concerned with boundary maintenance and a culture of globalisation (Roy, 2010, pp. 18–19). The Tamil musical economy is generated, in part, through the construction and maintenance of intergenerational Tamil cultural identities in the diaspora, which reflects the British South Asian music market in the 1980s. The Tamil music market has also evolved “in its own way, largely independent of the mainstream music economy, reflecting, perhaps, the isolation of the community at large, and increasing that of its musicians” (Banerji & Baumann, 1990, p. 141). This is particularly the case for first-generation musicians who migrated as a result of the labour market between South Asia and the diaspora generated by the musical economy. In London, musicians have been employed from Sri Lanka and South India to teach and perform music to diasporic communities in addition to the significant number of musicians who fled Sri Lanka as a result of the war. Similarly, temple musicians are hired from Sri Lanka, South India, Malaysia and Canada, to perform during temple festivals, weddings and arangetrams, during the summer months. Throughout the year (though not during Margazhi), carnatic artists, playback singers and bands from Chennai tour and perform to packed suburban theatres or arenas, as in the case of acclaimed music directors, Ilaiyaraaja, A. R. Rahman, and Anirudh Ravichander. Touring artists and music teachers based in Chennai – through their roots in the city – hold a great deal of cultural capital in the diaspora and can sustain their annual income with diasporic tours and online tuition to diasporic students. This diasporic musical activity largely takes place through individual networks and community organisations, well in the margins and often under the radar of mainstream society and music industries. While much of the Tamil transnational music scene is community-based and community-funded, its significance should not be understated as “diaspora economies … should be understood as both integral to, and parallel to, normative accounts of transnational global economies” (Dwyer, 2010, p. 90).

The musical foundations laid in the diaspora have led to the production of popular music styles, particularly work by second-generation artists such as Dhee, Abi Sampa, Pritt, Priya Ragu, Rolex Roxy, Sid Sriram, and Yanchan, many of whom grew up learning carnatic music and bharatanatyam. It is particularly the musical production of these second-generation artists that is gaining traction within the Tamil musical economy and beyond; from being popular in local diasporic community settings and gaining transnational followers while simultaneously growing in the global mainstream. Through their use of diverse musical foundations and sounds that are evocative of their musical backgrounds in the diasporic space, these artists utilise their “transcultural capital” (Kiwan & Meinhof, 2011) in diasporic localities like London, Toronto and Singapore and in Chennai and Colombo. These artists “use the valuable resources acquired in their countries and cultures of origin to underwrite and develop their art and at the same time underwrite and support their commercial appeal to different publics” (Kiwan & Meinhof, 2011, p. 9). Musicians gain commercial success in multiple localities as fast and abundant flows of mediated music have resulted in the production of similar soundscapes across borders, with diasporic communities able to reproduce the sounds of the “homeland/s”, while “homeland/s” already transmit soundscapes containing hybrid cultural forms resulting from contemporary transnational cultural flow (Zheng, 2010, p. 226). The combination of musical styles have been bilateral with carnatic, Kollywood and Tamil folk music and global popular music styles being creatively fused into commercially successful songs, particularly by Ilaiyaraaja, A. R. Rahman and Santhosh Narayanan in India and by second-generation musicians in the diaspora, thereby gaining audiences in South Asia as well as in diasporic localities and their mainstream industries.

This is the case for Pritt, a British Eelam Tamil R&B artist from London who gained international focus particularly after releasing a cover of “Unakkul Naane” sung by carnatic vocalist, Bombay Jeyashree from the film, Pachaikili Muthicharam (2007). The artist incorporates carnatic melodic inflections and melismas in her vocal style on a foundation of trap music. In her song, Identity (“ஐdentity” using the corresponding Tamil vowel), she incorporates these musical elements while her lyrics directly address gender stereotypes, female empowerment and colourism both within the Sri Lankan Tamil community and in the music industry. Pritt is one of a number of female Tamil artists who address gender inequalities, colourism and racism, and are gaining visibility and audibility in Tamil transnational and mainstream music industries in their locality. Since 2021, Pritt has also presented a show on BBC Asian Network to highlight South Indian and Sri Lankan music from around the world. The timing of Pritt's show is indicative of the current highly-dispersed, yet collaborative and connected, transnational Tamil music scene.

“Getting louder”: Tamil independent music and change

The transnational scene is “getting louder”. Not only are artists breaking into mainstream industries, social and political issues in and through musical production are being amplified. I now examine the feedback loops through four key processes that loop between individuals across multiple sites, between musical sounds, genres and the creative incorporation of these. The processes are collaboration, dissemination, musical connectivity and creativity and change. By investigating the examples through these processes, I aim to demonstrate the decentralisation of homogenising spaces in musical production, thereby emphasising the multiplicity and fluidity of Tamil musical production to the transnational networks themselves and with it the resistance and reiteration of socio-musical musical hierarchies.

The cross-border production of music through transnational collaboration is particularly significant to demonstrate the multiplicity and fluidity of the scene and its transnational loops. Malaysian Tamil hip-hop, in particular, demonstrates this multidirectionality and fluidity through collaborative transnational musical production that has shifted the axis of the centre from India (Pillai, 2013, p. 201). The use of Malaysian Tamil hip-hop in Kollywood films “transforms the classic diasporic relationship with India towards active collaborations, based on dynamically fluid negotiations and manipulations of global cultural borders” (Pillai, 2013, pp. 199–200). In the case of Asian electronic music, transnational collaboration demonstrates that “[t]he music is not static and fixed to one particular city, country or monolithic conception of the subcontinent. Rather, it articulates “routes” (Clifford, 1997, Gilroy, 1993), which are a product of diverse cultural flows, crossing everywhere from Okinawa to Ahmedabad to Burnley” (Murthy, 2007, p. 144). In the Tamil independent music scene, transnational collaboration is highlighted by the independent label and platform, maajja. Initiated by Canadian-Tamil tech entrepreneurs and supported by A. R. Rahman, maajja promises to create fair opportunities and sustainable careers for its diverse roster of artists. According to maajja, its artists maintain ownership of master recordings and hold all copyright on music released under the label. maajja stated that its mission was “to create the first-of-its-kind platform for the independent music scene that offers creative liberty as well as global reach. It will focus on amplifying the voice of South Asian talent globally and help them develop successful and sustainable careers in music, unhindered by the machinations of the film industry” (cited in TNN, 2021). While transnational Tamil musical production is not new, the high-profile launch of maajja and the collaboration that the label fosters shows recognition of the highly-dispersed nature and potential of the scene. This is particularly evident in the first song released by the label, “Enjoy Enjaami”, a collaboration between artists Dhee and Arivu. “Enjoy Enjaami” is sung by Dhee, an Australian-Tamil playback singer originally from Jaffna, Sri Lanka, for whom the song was her debut into independent music. Now based between Sydney and Chennai and predominantly through singing on Kollywood recordings, the artist demonstrates the transnational reality of Tamil artists' careers. Chennai-based Arivu, the song's lyricist and rapper, produces and performs in Kollywood as well as the independent scene – he released his album, Therukural, in 2019 and is a member of The Casteless Collective. “Enjoy Enjaami” also references Arivu's Sri Lankan heritage. As distinct from the hegemony of Dhee's Jaffna Tamil heritage, the narrative of the song refers to Arivu's grandmother's hardships as an Indian Dalit labourer on the island, thereby highlighting the social hierarchies among Tamils in Sri Lanka (see Daniel, 1996) and the caste hierarchies between the vocalists. The song was produced by Santhosh Narayanan who is known for combining of gaana, parai and other folk genres into the Kollywood sound. The song's production is inherently collaborative across borders, between musicians and producers with affiliations to India, Sri Lanka, Australia and Canada. This is demonstrative of musical production taking place within the loop itself.

While there is collaborative potential through transnational feedback loops, “Enjoy Enjaami” highlights the limits and hierarchies that are maintained through them. The collaboration brings together musicians from different styles, national and social backgrounds: Arivu is from a Dalit background whereas Dhee is from a Brahmin background and, despite the song's potential to challenge socio-musical power relations within the musical economy, the collaborative process was still shaped by caste hierarchies. This was most notable in the accreditation of “Enjoy Enjaami” between the collaborators and a cover story for Rolling Stone India where, in the profiling of diasporic artists Dhee (and Shan Paul de Vincent) Arivu was not featured, reflecting the erasure of the Dalit-background artist. Whereas Dhee gained credit for the hugely successful song, Arivu's contribution was downplayed, even despite the prominence of his family's historical narrative in the song. The controversies demonstrate that despite the potential of cross-border collaboration, there are still many limiting factors at play.

The album, “Made In Jaffna”, released under maajja in September 2021 by Shan Vincent de Paul (also known as SVDP) is also demonstrative of transnational collaboration, largely taking place beyond the subcontinent, as is increasingly the case in the Tamil independent scene. SVDP is a Toronto-based Canadian-Tamil rapper, who was born in Jaffna and experienced forced migration due to the civil war. The album's production includes vocal contributions by Pritt on “Afterlife” and Indian American singer Sid Sriram on “Seeds”, in addition to Tamil and non-Tamil collaborators in Canada. However, “Neeye Oli” was collaboratively produced in the loop between Chennai and Toronto. The song was produced by Santhosh Narayanan, with English lyrics written by SVDP and Tamil lyrics written by Arivu, and performed by SVDP, Narayanan and Eelam Tamil Canadian artist, Navz-47 – a Tamil-language rapper and singer whose music emphasises racism, gender inequalities and female empowerment. “Neeye Oli” was used as the theme song for Sarpatta Parambarai (2021), a Tamil film set in the 1970s that follows a Dalit protagonist in the North Madras boxing world. This transnational collaboration again brings into focus the complex geographies of the artists producing work in this scene. Rather than simple linear connections between Chennai and Toronto, the collaboration brings into question the multi-layered national backgrounds of the artists and in doing so highlights the cultural contribution of artists from Sri Lanka, Canada and elsewhere in the diaspora in addition to India. This is particularly significant for Sri Lankan Tamil diasporic communities who are infrequently visible, negatively represented or have experienced discrimination in popular culture and carnatic music coming out of Chennai.

Dissemination is implicit in the circulation of feedback loops, which is getting faster due to the immediacy afforded by social media and digital platforms. Their impact on the speed and the accessibility of music thereby amplifys the social issues raised in and through the music. The new music currently being produced is digital, it is released via Gaana, JioSaavn, Apple Music, YouTube, Spotify, among others, with promotion taking place via social media platforms. While already used extensively, digital technology, social media and streaming platforms have amplified and accelerated the dissemination of new Tamil music (particularly in the reliance on the digital space during the COVID-19 pandemic). For instance, “Enjoy Enjaami” was digitally released in March 2020, and “went viral” with 15 million views on YouTube in the first week of its release. It has since been viewed and streamed over 400 million times on YouTube and Spotify alone (as of 13th January 2022). As the first song released on maajja, the label fulfilled its brief in “amplifying the voice of South Asian talent globally” through global distribution and reach. The song's reach extended well beyond Kollywood audiences and transnational Tamil networks towards the global mainstream as it was later released as a remix by Grammy award winning, DJ Snake. However, the original credits on Spotify only listed “DJ Snake & Dhee” and again erased Arivu's contribution to the song.

Digital distribution has increased the diaspora's reach into the subcontinent, enabling “the diaspora and “homeland” to share music seamlessly” (Murthy, 2007, p. 152). The dissemination of the “Mrithangam Raps” series on YouTube similarly looped around the transnational scene. Produced and performed by SVDP and Yanchan, a Canadian-Tamil producer, singer and mridangam player, also from an Eelam Tamil background, the series gained popularity particularly among Indian audiences which resulted in the five-city “Oh Gawd” Indian tour in February 2020. The tour led to commercial success of the artists’ subsequent albums on the subcontinent and the transnational collaboration of the hit track, “Neeye Oli”. In addition to performances in Canada, another Indian tour took place in March 2023, demonstrating the significance of digital dissemination in generating the scene both virtually and physically.

While socio-musical networks and interactions are significant to the music scene, so too is musical connectivity and creativity, which indicates the creative incorporation of certain musical genres and practices, musical sounds and devices that connect people across borders. Artists develop their creative outputs by drawing on familiar and popular musical devices that resonate with multiple transnational audiences through individual styles in different sites of the transnational scene. Such creative conventions are key in relation to feedback loops and successful musical production (Johansson, 2020, p. 29). The Tamil independent “sound” builds on the commercially successful creative conventions of film songs which incorporates numerous genres, such as carnatic music and gaana with “the shifting trends of popular music from around the globe” (Getter, 2014, p. 65). Similarly, the musical inclusion of marginalised sounds in independent music is preceded by their inclusion in Kollywood music and mainstream performances, demonstrating the significant role of India-based artists in enabling these loops. “Enjoy Enjaami” demonstrates this hybridised sound and the inclusion of marginalised genres as the song combines global pop, hip-hop and R&B with oppari and parai drumming. Both genres are associated with funeral rites in Tamil Nadu and Northeast Sri Lanka, with oppari being a form of Tamil folk singing sung as laments and eulogies by older women to express both grief during funerals and social injustices, while parai drumming is performed by Dalit musicians in funeral processions. Both genres are being recontextualised in popular culture, performing arts and protest. The "Enjoy Enjaami" music video opens with rolling and crescendoing parai drumming before the song starts with a foundation of bass, guitar and electric percussion over a 4/4 beat and a funk bass ostinato and strings. Dhee sings the song's verse in her pop style, followed by Arivu's rap, with the two joining in unison to sing the catchy “Enjoy Enjaami” chorus in unison. Arivu's high-pitched and prominent oppari singing punctuates the track. Following his rap, the track seamlessly transitions into a short 4-line oppari verse between 2′30″ and 2′38″, sung from the perspective of Arivu's grandmother, before returning to Dhee and followed by the chorus. An extended oppari returns between 3′30″ and 3′56″ – the first four lines sung to the “annakilli” melody previously sung by Arivu and Dhee, with the final six lines sung to the previous oppari melody with lamentation at the end of the verse as it fades into the bridge. The oppari is therefore significant in the overall song structure. As a genre which has not been recognised as an art form but relegated as “noise” (Greene, 2000), by bringing oppari into this track it is creating a new platform for a marginalised style and recognising its aesthetic merit. Whereas the inclusion of oppari in Tamil cinema serves a diegetic and narrative function, such as in Pariyerum Perumal (2018), Karnan (2021) and Sen Aayiram Pon (2020), its inclusion in “Enjoy Enjaami” incorporates the musical sound and style into the song in its own right while also bringing in the metaphorical voices of marginalised women into a “global” pop track, thereby disrupting traditional socio-musical hierarchies as it re-enters India as popular culture (Roy, 2010, p. 16). Combining oppari with the global genre of hip-hop, another form rising out of marginalised communities to voice social injustices, makes audible these marginalised forms in transnational independent music in the global space, thereby also legitimising their artistic form which is made possible in and through these loops.

“Mrithangam Raps” also centre on hip-hop rap but instead combine it with carnatic music – a genre loaded with social hierarchies and exclusions. SVDP and Yanchan position the mridangam in a distinct context from its carnatic role. Yanchan plays adapted carnatic jathi rhythmic patterns to fit and emphasise SVDP's rap without melodic structure, leaving space for the clarity of the English-language lyrics that address violence and oppression. As in its carnatic usage, the mridangam closely follows the vocalist, responding and elaborating on the rhythm of SVDP's delivery, the tempo and metre changes, and providing tirmanam rhythmic cadences to conclude sections and the tracks themselves. The use of the mridangam here, in music that aims to cut across society through its lyrical content and hip-hop style, is notable. The instrument is further caught up in caste hierarchies in addition to those of the carnatic music genre, as the mridangam is largely made by Dalit makers in Tamil Nadu yet it is largely performed on by upper caste and Brahmin musicians. This triangular relationship between maker, performer and instrument was recently highlighted in the film, Sarvam Thaalamayam (2018), and the book, Sebastian and Sons (Krishna, 2020). Musically, the “Mrithangam Raps” have the potential to implicitly resist the caste hierarchies associated with the instrument's construction and in carnatic music more widely as it is recontextualised into hip-hop. “Mrithangam Raps” again incorporate carnatic instrumentation through the use of the tambura in “Mrithangam Raps: Episode 6" – through the repetition of a single plucked tambura string – and in “Mrithangam Raps: Episode 7", in which the ongoing tambura drone provides a foundation. The use of carnatic music has both the potential to appeal to diasporic and subcontinental markets, and it also has the potential to resist and reiterate caste hierarchies. While the inclusion of mridangam and carnatic rhythmic devices reflects the Tamil diasporic cultural background and musical practice of Yanchan, and that of much of the second generation, it also has the potential to break out of the soundscapes that sonically represent caste dominance, discrimination and oppression as it loops back to India in its recontextualised form via YouTube. However, the artists also foreground a genre that is musically and socially hegemonic, particularly in India – although produced by musicians in the distinct socio-political context of the Sri Lankan/Eelam Tamil diaspora. As these musical features loop around and enter India, they gain new meanings and positions of power, demonstrating that it is also within these loops that the complexities from multiple local socio-political contexts come together and create tension as well as change.

“Mrithangam Raps” sonically combine sounds that appeal to multiple publics across socio-political contexts. The foregrounding of hip-hop rap is significant, as it is in "Enjoy Enjaami", as it demonstrates the loop between Tamil hip-hop from Malaysia, its incorporation into Kollywood, its uptake by Indian, Sri Lankan and Tamil diasporic artists, and links with the work of “global” North American hip-hop stars. “Mrithangam Raps” emerges from this, the diasporic carnatic scene and the Canadian hip-hop scene, shaped by Drake, while “Mrithangam Raps: Episode 6" explicitly references American hip-hop artists as it covers work by Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar. As a genre, from Kuala Lumpur to Colombo, and New York to Toronto, hip-hop is rooted in experiences of poverty, marginalisation and social injustice and has transformatory capacity as a form of global popular culture for genres caught up in local social hierarchies. It is a musical form which sonically connects to multiple publics and markets, demonstrating “transcultural capital” to “support their commercial appeal to different publics” (Kiwan & Meinhof, 2011, p. 9) whether it provides a vehicle for the recontextualisation of oppari or carnatic music with Tamil and/or English-language rap.

Finally, these feedback loops encapsulate movements towards, and questions the potential for, change. Change can be identified in and through transnational musical production, with regards to socio-musical hegemonies and how musical production increasingly focuses on addressing social and political issues. These issues are “getting louder” as the music travels and is produced and consumed in the transnational scene and beyond. These loops, however, are not decontextualised from the localities they connect and, therefore, are also shaped by multiple socio-political contexts. The current moment in the scene reflects, in part, the feeding in of global movements towards social change in 2020 with the re-emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement and the murder of George Floyd resulting in the mobilisation of social and decolonisation movements in India, the UK and other parts of the Tamil diaspora. Global solidarity relies on a movement's resonance with local concerns, particularly when joining digitally networked action, therefore the BLM movement amplified action in India against violence against Muslims, colourism and caste violence (Shahin et al., 2021, p. 15). In diasporic localities, particularly in the UK and Canada, anti-racist and decolonisation movements were mobilised. The Tamil music scene reflected this and the unresolved issues of human rights abuses, war crimes and disappearances in Sri Lanka.

In “Enjoy Enjaami”, change is demonstrated by its musical connectivity and creativity. The song foregrounds a marginalised genre, aligned with marginalised communities, and therefore integrates oppari into the transnational/global Tamil sound. “Enjoy Enjaami” is also a comment on numerous social issues in its lyrical content. Arviu's family narrative importantly tells the story of the colonial migration of Tamil labourers from Tamil Nadu to the tea plantations of Ceylon and returning to landlessness once again in India. For instance, the lyrical content explicitly refers to landless labour in the oppari section of the song, as Arivu sings from the point of view of his grandmother who planted and nurtured a flourishing garden, yet she did not have the rights to the fruits of her labour.

Caste markers, discrimination and oppression are referenced in the lyrics relating to unequal land rights and landless labour particularly experienced by Dalit communities. Anurag Tagat, the author of the Rolling Stone cover story, suggests that Arivu's lyrics “makes us think about the politics of marginalization, caste and how generations have survived in the face of oppression” (2021) while at the same time the artist's portrait was excluded from the cover story itself. The collaborative production reflects postcolonial Tamil migration through Dhee's participation, but the song and its lyrics reference the migration of Tamil labourers during British colonial administration. The song demonstrates the highly complex Tamil migration and diaspora and amplifies the experiences of Tamil labourers in Sri Lanka, and in doing so, amplifies Tamil identities and culture beyond India (see Tagat, 2021). The lyrics also focus on a “return to roots”, and an imagined Tamil past in which humans lived together and with nature in harmony. The chorus tells its listeners to “come together as one” and in the Rolling Stone interview, Dhee suggested that Tamils in India, Sri Lanka and in the diaspora are experiencing a moment of solidarity through similar experiences and emotions and “are actually coming together in a way right now more than ever that involves embracing things more than pointing fingers” (cited in Tagat, 2021). While this may have been the case for Dhee, there was a significant response that the song and its controversy around Arivu's erasure was a case of Dalit exploitation, and is therefore shaped by, and reiterates, caste hierarchies. Despite the intent for solidarity between the transnational Tamil community through music and through the theme of nature, “Enjoy Enjaami” does not overwrite the ongoing hierarchies that exist within and between communities in India, Sri Lanka and the diaspora.

In multiple ways, “Enjoy Enjaami” amplifies caste inequalities as well as provides a popular culture platform for marginalised musics. Similarly, “Mrithangam Raps” and “Made in Jaffna” addresses social and political inequalities experienced in Sri Lanka and the diaspora through lyrical as well as musical content. The lyrics in the series express experiences of ethnic violence, migration and alienation. “Mrithangam Raps: Episode 8”, for instance, explicitly addresses political hegemonies through reference to the ethnic violence experienced by Tamil people by the Sri Lankan state, such as the erasure of Tamil culture, the assault on Tamils in the “No fire zone” at the end of the civil war and the lack of international response.³

“Made in Jaffna” reflects the themes of the raps, while also placing experiences of discrimination inherent from colonialism, racism, resilience and life in Tamil diasporic communities at the forefront. The inclusion of diverse, yet many mutual, experiences in the diaspora as well as on the subcontinent in the current rise in Tamil transnational music speaks to both those who have migrated as well as those who remain. Noting the earlier hostility of Sri Lankan Tamil musicians in India, “Mrithangam Raps” and “Made in Jaffna” directly address the experiences of Tamils in Northeast Sri Lanka and the diaspora and is gaining commercial success in India. Through their music, the artists acknowledge the cross-border connection and experience of solidarity. The strengthening of cross-border Tamil solidarities reflects SVDP's vision “to strengthen the bridge between the Tamil diaspora and our motherland” (cited in Akundi, 2021). This vision, however, is complicated by the reproduction of musical styles by diasporic artists that are so strongly associated with caste hierarchies in Tamil Nadu when the loops come back around to the Indian context. Coming from distinct socio-political contexts – in Sri Lanka, Australia and Canada in these cases – and they themselves often coming from a position of marginalisation in the diasporic space, it could be argued that diasporic artists emerging in the Indian market may unintentionally recreate these hierarchies through their production and participation, either through the argument that genres such as oppari and parai are appropriated for the commercial success of caste privileged musicians or in terms of using sounds of hegemonic carnatic music and becoming involved in the specific power relations in the Chennai scene. In this regard, these case studies reveal the inherent complexities within feedback loops in the current moment of Tamil transnational independent musical production and the cross-border collaborations, solidarities and tensions that are arising in the musical economy. The feedback loops are indicative of a rising transnational musical economy that is incorporating diverse artists, music styles and social experiences. However, there are limits to the socio-musical change in these loops due to the potential disjunctures when working across multiple scenes, markets and distinct socio-political contexts, which do not necessarily merge neatly through transnational musical production. The transnational processes of collaboration, dissemination, musical connectivity and creativity and change do, however, demonstrate that Tamil independent music is getting louder, as are issues of social and political inequality.

Conclusion

In this article, I have explored the current transnational Tamil music scene through the analogy of multidirectional “feedback loops”. These loops are used to think through the rise in Tamil transnational independent music and its change of dynamic in terms of its production, audibility and amplification of the musical sounds and social and political inequalities. This analogy captures the multidirectionality, multiplicity and fluidity of the interactions, networks and production of the music and the transformative cycles of feedback at the transnational level, thereby shifting from ideas of a binary scene between diaspora and “homeland”. It is within these loops, in the nexus of circulation enabled by Tamil migration and diasporic formation that the transnational Tamil music scene is generated. It is also within these loops that the music itself and the social and political inequalities inherent in its histories are “getting louder”, both in terms of their reiteration and their resistance of power hierarchies. The case studies examined here demonstrate the complexity of the participation and production when they take place across multiple market economies and socio-political contexts. While the loops in the global space hold the potential to break away from traditional boundaries and social hierarchies, they are also limited by the ongoing issues of social hierarchies in the multiple sites in which they touch down. This is a significant moment, as these musical feedback loops are not only strengthening the economy of cross-border Tamil music-making, they also have the potential to both challenge and carry exclusionary attitudes in South Indian and diasporic creative economies. Experiences of migration and exclusion are inherent characteristics of the current transnational music scene, which is reflective in its potential for a cross-border Tamil solidarity and a more inclusive global Tamil sound.

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Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 This article is grounded in extensive ethnographic fieldwork with diasporic musicians in Chennai and London (undertaken as part of my PhD research that gained approval from Goldsmiths University of London ethics committee and for which I gained informed consent from participants), observation of the digital scene and muscial analysis.

2 I refer to Eelam here in cases where individuals refer to themselves as Eelam Tamil, rather than Sri Lankan Tamil, to connote their backgrounds to the Tamil Northeast of the island and their resistance to the Sri Lankan state.

3 For the full lyrics, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEA4KVazNBQ (accessed 16th May 2023).