By March 2020, the physical world came to a sudden, grinding halt. As the Covid-19 pandemic triggered global lockdowns, offices closed, streets emptied, and the live music industry vanished overnight. Concert venues were shuttered, tours were canceled, and artists were left stranded, wondering how they would survive without the stage.
Yet, while the physical world was on pause, the digital world switched into hyperdrive. Stuck inside, millions of people turned to digital entertainment as a lifeline, causing massive surges in music streaming, podcast listening, and video viewing. For artists, a “digital-first” mindset was no longer just a forward-thinking business strategy: it became a financial life jacket. While they experimented with livestreams and direct-to-fan merchandise sales to keep the lights on, the automated nature of digital streaming kept royalties flowing directly into their pockets.
Saving the Songs of the Soil
In India, the lockdown posed an immediate threat to traditional musical communities. While urban pop stars could easily pivot to streaming concerts from their living rooms, rural folk musicians living in remote villages were completely cut off from their audiences and essential supplies. Because these traditional artists relied entirely on local festivals and physical gatherings to survive, the pandemic threatened to wipe out their livelihoods entirely.
Believe stepped up in April 2020, partnering with the non-profit Anahad Foundation to launch Let’s Folk Together, an artist relief fundraiser aimed at supporting 5,000 folk artists across the country. The press release issued at that time was adamant:
“Today, the folk music community in India find themselves in an extremely tragic circumstance as they remain in lockdown in remote villages, cut-off from metros and essential supplies and while India fights to curb the spread of the virus, the future of the folk music community, which relies completely on their craft as musicians focused mainly on shows and events, is at risk.“
A million dollars a day for the bedroom producer
Right in the middle of this global shutdown, Believe officially rolled its automated independent distribution platform, TuneCore, into India in July 2020. The timing was impeccable. Globally, TuneCore was already paying out a staggering $1 million a day to self-releasing artists, crossing a historic milestone of $2 billion in total independent payouts by that October.
For small, grassroots Indian acts with no corporate label backing, the platform provided an immediate financial engine when all other doors were shut. TuneCore quickly integrated into the local digital fabric, partnering with domestic streaming giant Gaana in October. This local launch gave Believe an incredibly powerful talent incubator; independent acts could kickstart their careers completely on their own terms through TuneCore, while Believe’s local teams monitored the data to identify who was ready to be graduated into their premium artist services and full-label divisions.
Bypassing Bollywood for the heartland
I’ve seen this journey over and over again, where the real growth is coming from regional markets. The regions are hungry for culture. The culture there is different, the artist languages are different, and even sounds sometimes can be very different.
Vivek Raina
Managing Director, India
Believe’s rapid expansion in India was built on a different approach to artist development, as they chose to ignore the standard industry playbook. While Bollywood remained the dominant force in the country’s recorded music industry, Believe India did the exact opposite. They looked past the movie studios and the massive metros, wagering that the true, untapped future of Indian music lay in the incredibly diverse regional music scenes bubbling up in “tier two” and “tier three” cities.
“Our strategy was to remain big in the regional markets,” says Vivek Raina. “By regional, that means tier two and tier three cities. And when the boom came, the biggest beneficiaries were us because we were not into Bollywood. Bollywood generally concentrated on the mainstream Hindi OST Content. So when the regional boom happened, the biggest beneficiaries were people like us.“
As affordable smartphones and mobile data spread rapidly through India’s smaller towns, regional audiences grew hungry for music sung in their own local languages and distinct cultural dialects.
“I’ve seen this journey over and over again, where the real growth is coming from regional markets,” Vivek Raina explains. “The regions are hungry for culture. The culture there is different, the artist languages are different, and even sounds sometimes can be very different.“
Fueling the underdog labels
Rather than focusing exclusively on the largest, most established players, Believe India acted as a nimble catalyst and developed partnerships with independent local underdog labels across the country. Combining local expertise with financial investment, technology and digital services, the company helped these labels expand their reach while contributing to the growth of India’s increasingly diverse music ecosystem.
“The way the market was structured was that you had global majors and you have local majors – and they pretty much covered 90% of the market”, Vivek Raina explains. “That was between six, seven or eight labels. But there were smaller labels which had a great capacity for developing artists under the umbrella. Apart from this, however, you also need financial support if they are to compete with the local majors or international majors. You picked up the markets where you have the highest possibility of developing the next stage of artists. It was a combination of technological support, human intelligence, and financial support.“
The long-term payoff
Mahra Tora is an imprint for a segment which, three or four years ago, was a very small market segment in India. The idea is not to sign at scale, but to pick up an artist at the emerging level, where we can spend time, energy, and cash in developing this artist further.
Vivek Raina
Managing Director, India
This patient, grassroots strategy laid the foundation for entirely new sub-genres to explode into the mainstream. A perfect example of this blueprint was the June 2025 launch of Mahra Tora, Believe India’s dedicated imprint for Haryanvi music; a distinct, highly urban regional sound that was practically invisible to the mainstream industry just a few years prior.
“Mahra Tora is an imprint for a segment which, three or four years ago, was a very small market segment in India,” says Vivek Raina. “The sound is very close to what Punjabi music is, very urban. The idea of the imprint is not to sign at scale, but to pick up an artist at the emerging level, where we can spend time, energy, and cash in developing this artist further.“
By refusing to back down during the uncertainty of 2020, Believe’s deep investment in the cultural wealth of India’s heartland has rewritten the balance of power in the market.
“We are already top three in the market,” says Vivek Raina, looking at the position Believe now holds. “We want to be number one in the next two years.“
By the close of 2020, Believe’s strategy in India demonstrated how digital infrastructure and local expertise could reinforce one another. Combining technology, regional partnerships and long-term artist development, the company strengthened its position in one of the world’s fastest-growing music markets.
———————
Article written by Eamonn Forde. Eamonn Forde is an award-winning music business journalist and author. He writes for The Guardian, Forbes; Music Week, and Music Business Worldwide and several other publications.
