MUMBAI: Ever thought how east and west collaborations are coming more into the picture than in the earlier generations? Passion is the reason behind the impossibilities now converting into a trend.

Indian artists going for live concerts across borders are forging deeper bonds international artists, who in turn are increasingly enamoured by the Indian music industry. Several of these artists have offered to work with Indian musicians and have come up with some wonderful collaborations in music and songs in 2016.

Radioandmusic.com has always kept you updated about recent collaborations as and when they happened. Here is a glimpse of few artists who successfully collaborated and were one of the best Indian and International combinations.

• Haryanvi sensation Rahul Yadav, commonly known as Fazilpuria is in talks with American rapper Pitbull for a collaboration song since April. The rappers plan to come up with a song where Fazilpuria will rap in Haryanvi and Pitbull in Spanish, interesting, isn’t it?

• Indian pop-rock and Bollywood playback singer Kailash Kher on his tour to USA and Canada for concerts met popular jazz bassist Richard Bona in NewYork. Over talks, Kailash Kher was shocked to know Richard is a big Fan of Kailash’s songs and also performs ‘Teri Deewani’ in all his concerts. Plans of collaboration were then proposed to Richard and as the nature of their songs coincidently falls similar, Kailash was also interested to get Richard India for a collaboration.

• One of the youngest British bands The Vamps famous among the teens all over the world have worked with Indian artiste not once but twice this year. The vamps worked with duo music composer and singer Vishal-Shekhar for a music video ‘Beliya’ in August and also with music director Mithoon for Ajay Devgan’s movie ‘Shivaay’. Know what was a cherry on the cake? The Vamps lead singer Bradley Simpson sang Hindi lyrics as well.

• Amazingly a movie this year got in two famous international singers for its songs. Akon and West Indies cricketer and singer DJ Bravo sang for the movie ‘Tum Bin 2’. DJ Bravo was excited and nervous too for singing in a Bollywood film. He has also been featured in the song ‘Jaegar Bomb’. Akon has collaborated with Atif Aslam for the title track of ‘Tum Bin 2’.

• In a US concert tour, table maestro Zakir Hussain and sitar maestro Niladri Kumar were seen collaborating with Grammy Award winner Mickey Hart. The duo was performing from East Coast to the West Coast with the one-month long tour which started on 1 October. Hart joined them in a first of its kind Indian classical tour featuring the tabla and the sitar for the Berkeley Concert on 26 October. Also, Hussain has contributed extensively to Hart’s 1991 album ‘Planet Drum’ and the two percussionists also worked together in the Global Drum Project and have shared numerous live stages – including Grateful Dead shows – over the past several decades.

• Bollywood’s king rapper Badshah is unstoppable, after hitting dozens of chartbusters he is once again back in the action. This time ‘Kar Gai Chull’ star collaborated with Sean Paul and DJ Shadow Dubai for his latest song 'Move Your Body'. The single is sung by Sean Paul and Badshah. The music is produced by DJ Shadow (Dubai) and the lyrics are penned by Sean Paul and Badshah.

Not only popular known artistes, Independent music artistes were also seen working with the international artistes in 2016.

• A 21-year-old progressive house and electro music producer ‘DJ Shaan’ finished the year on a high note. Shaan was working for a collaboration with Tom Swoon and Robert Falcon for his upcoming single. Also, he was one of the headlining acts in Sunburn 10 and also played at EVC. Shaan, Tom and Robert have been collaborating for a while now. The trio collaborated for the song ‘Mirage’ which was released on 12 December 2016.

• ‘Lost stories’ Indian electronic duo Rishab Joshi and Prayag Mehta who started their journey from 2009, being the first Indian artiste gave a kickass performance in Tomorrowland 2015 and have been steadily rising in fame on the music scene. Lost Stories geared up for a collaboration with JETFIRE, a Belgium-Israeli group of DJs. The band's track titled ‘ India’ was released on Spinnin’ Records.

• Arjun Vagale, one of the country’s leading electronic music exports declared on 6 January 2016 on his Instagram that he was joining forces with Spanish DJ and producer Ramiro Lopez for their first collaborative effort ‘We Are Odd’. According to Arjun, it is an aim to create something new and unusual. Their first release titled ‘We Are Odd’ includes two tracks 'Odd Ball' and 'Even Flow'. Both the tracks contain left-of-centre dance-floor techno tunes which will be released on 20 January 2017 on Odd Recordings. Odd Recordings is a futuristic new Indo-Spanish record label with an emphasis on the raw side of techno, run by Arjun Vagale and Ramiro Lopez.

• A step towards bridging the gap between India and South Asian countries was taken by Singer- Actor Monica Dogra. She worked with Malaysian artiste Resh for his single titled Trouble and had fun experimenting with a pure pop sound. The emotionally charged ballad is the third single from Who Am I. The track is produced by Jim Beanz of Sunset Entertainment Group, directed by Resh himself and shot in India and Malaysia. Monica seems to have a fun-loving experience and wishes to keep doing such more collaborations so that the Indian audience are enlightened about happenings in the neighbouring countries and vice versa.