MUMBAI: Singer Armaan Malik, who was present at the Music Inc Forum, spoke about independent music and how Bollywood has overshadowed it.

The singer was a part of the panel, ‘Fan Engagement and Direct-2-Consumers Strategies’, who had other members like Co-founder and MD Qyuki Digital Media Samir Bangara, Founder of The Lynk Yvan Boudillet, Smule India Saurabh Sharma, Owner and Producer of Illusion Audio Keshav Dhar and Managing Director of Governance Kailash Adhikari. The members discussed strategies of fan engagement on the panel.

Speaking about indie music Armaan said, “The indie scene is suppressed in India by Bollywood. There are many talented bands and artists, who do not get a chance to showcase their talent as the major part of the music industry is dominated by Bollywood as its consumers are more.”

“I would cite my example itself to justify my statement. So, I wanted to come up with an album But, I needed Bollywood to come with it as it would go unnoticed otherwise. My debut album was Armaan with Universal Music. I apparently had a song in the film Jai Ho featuring Salman Khan, that’s how my song got noticed,” the 22-year-old further added.

Armaan has always been vocal about making Indian singers the face of the album or song and not remain suppressed by Bollywood. On this, Armaan further said, “As an artist, I believe it is important that non-film music becomes popular and it is becoming. Many indie artists are doing non-film music parallel to Bollywood and it is going to become huge.”

Post attending the conference, Armaan signed off by sharing his experience on being a part of it. He said, “It was an amazing conference, a lot of topics were discussed and I’m glad I was a part of it.”

Music Inc Forum is India’s first and largest conference dedicated to music branding and technology, a two-day conference being attended by some big names from both entertainment and business side of music.