Vikram Gudi has made his name in the music industry in quite untraditional ways.
He grew up on Punjabi music and became an intern at Ninja Tune. Now, he organises stages at Glastonbury’s Shangri-La area and is the founder of Lila, a non-profit that describes itself as an organisation “focused on empowering South Asian artists & music professionals in the UK music industry.” He also had to lie to his parents to get all of this done.
Growing up in a South Asian household, a career in the music industry simply wasn’t a thing. Undeterred, Gudi made it happen anyway, but still experienced challenges along the way, many of which were (and still are) specific to the South Asian experience. Parents who demand a specific form of success, a lack of familiar faces and a quelling of his culture from label executives were all hurdles for him to overcome. But he wants to change that.
Gudi is now using his experience to usher in the next generation of talent, all while furthering South Asian representation. That comes in the form of The South Asian Soundcheck, a new survey which aims to provide a blueprint for greater access for people from South Asian communities into the music and festival industry. Supported by bodies such as UK Music, British Recorded Music Industry (BPI), Musicians Union (MU) and Music Managers Forum (MMF), Gudi hopes it will help usher in a new generation of South Asian talent within the music industry.
Here, we speak with Gudi to learn about the need for more South Asian faces in the music industry, and why 2025 could mark a cultural shift in making that happen.
Jack Needham: how did you first get into the industry?
“I moved to London in typical South Asian family style. I wasn’t allowed to study music, so I was forced into getting a proper job, which ended up with me studying engineering at UCL.
I used academics to get to London. My dad promised me that if I studied something proper, then, I was allowed to go to London and he would help with the fees and and things like that. I kind of got blackmailed into doing engineering, but I’m grateful because it got me to London. I didn’t have a plan, but I knew the first step of the plan was to get to London, because that’s what everything’s happening.”
Jack Needham: you mentioned the barriers for South Asian people in accessing the industry and needing an example that someone can point to. Did you have someone like that when you were breaking into the industry?
“It’s about having role models. If I could do this again, it would be a lot easier for me to get into the music industry if there were role models, pathways in and acceleration programmes. But specifically for South Asians, we have an extra problem in that we have to convince our parents. There has to be a real contract. We can’t just blag it.
I had to hustle my way into the industry. I had to really try very hard, and I had a lot of rejection. And once I was in, I wasn’t going to be moved. But once I was in the industry, there weren’t barriers, per se. I don’t think I was discriminated against at all. I was really lucky to have some incredible mentors, but there just weren’t enough South Asian faces in in the industry. I could count all of the South Asian faces on one hand, and it didn’t make any sense.”
Jack Needham: how can the survey you’re undertaking help change some of the problems you’ve just mentioned?
“This survey moves conversations from opinion to undeniable fact. Everyone in the South Asian scene knows that we’re underrepresented, and a lot of people are trying to drive change and are doing incredible things. But it’s really hard to leverage data to get real change made.
To get real change made you need funding, programming, hiring, investment, and unfortunately, that’s easy without data. So the reason that Lila exists is to prove what all of us have been saying for a long time.”
Jack Needham: why is now a good time to do this?
“South Asian culture comes in waves. In the mid-90s, there was a huge wave in the electronic music scene. In the early-2000s, there was a huge wave with acts like Punjabi MC and hip-hop artists sampling Indian and South Asian music.
There’s another wave now, but this wave is much bigger. It’s not just music now, it’s a cross-cultural wave. Culture seems to be shifting to the East, and that’s empowering South Asians more in the UK. So the timing isn’t coincidental, it’s on purpose. This would be impossible to do if there hadn’t already been 20 or 30 years of work put in by the previous generations.”
Jack Needham: is the way that people describe music outside of Europe changed in recent years? For example, ten years ago, someone like Bad Bunny may have been described as ‘South American rap’, and not typical hip-hop.
“I think it’s a change in culture in general.
There was the indie sleaze era, which featured a lot of South Asian artists but labels were telling them to play their culture down because it doesn’t sell records. That was not too long ago, but people have become a lot more accepting. Inclusion is cool, and I think that’s why it can work now.”
