To say that Zoya has tried it all would be one way to sum up her artistic journey so far. The Indian-origin American artist has, over the last decade, been carving out her space and sound somewhere between folk singer-songwriter, pop, electronic, and Indian-informed fusion.
The California-raised artist also recorded two pop-rock albums in India when she was 13 years old. After studying at Berklee College of Music in Boston, she released an EP and eventually returned to India, setting up base in Mumbai for a few years.
She’s released albums, “demo-dropped” songs through a SoundCloud partnership, wiped her Instagram feed clean, appeared on playlists for Indian indie, hip-hop heads, gym workouts, and heartbreaks. And now, she’s done it all over again with her new album The Human Era Is Over (The I/O), which she describes as a “packaged radio record.” She’s not saying it to sell the record, but more as a genuine definition of the new music. She says about the writing process, “I just had gotten so far deep into this that I was like, ‘I’m just gonna go and write this for me, and I don’t really care if this comes out.’”
Thematically, the album explores what it means to be human in the age of “digital noise and disconnection,” and the concerns attached with turning 30 years old. The overarching message, with songs like “Keep Going,” is to be resilient in the face of change and choose yourself. And of course, to choose music.
Zoya has chased all kinds of success, reinventing her approach each time in a rapidly changing global music industry. If you look at some of the most iconic pop stars over the decades, from Elton John to Madonna, Michael Jackson to Britney Spears, Lady Gaga to Taylor Swift, and Billie Eilish, one of the key signifiers is how they’ve constantly wiped the slate clean and turned to new sounds, new aesthetics, and a new story.
Is it necessitated by changing tastes and appealing to different demographics? Or is it reflective of our shrinking attention spans and tendency to always gravitate towards what’s new and disruptive? From an artist’s perspective, it’s sometimes about the perennial search for authenticity in one’s voice and message. Other times, it’s about being enamored by technological advancements, especially in music production.
Former radio executive Vineet Singh Hukmani, who served as the founder CEO of Radio One in India for 11 years from 2007 onwards before taking on the artist tag in 2020, has seen both sides of the coin — as a music industry veteran as well as a multi-genre artist. In five years, Hukmani has released everything from rock to electronic-pop to Latin music-inspired bops and, most recently, a jazz album called Enigma followed by a double album Delta Blues Revival and Kyon? Punjabi Blues of English and Punjabi blues, respectively, featuring American blues artist Ruffus Cotton.
He says he’s always seen Indian artists embracing reinvention. “During the Indi-pop era of the 1990s and early 2000s, we saw a wave of artists experimenting with new sounds, visuals, and identities.” He says “independent expression took a bit of a backseat” among Indian artists when film music dominated the airwaves. That is, until streaming and social media put the spotlight back on experimentalists and boundary-pushers of pop music in India, referencing the likes of Alisha Chinai, Suneeta Rao, Shaan, Daler Mehndi, and more.
“Artists today can reinvent themselves as often as they like and still find an audience that’s open to evolution. It’s a full-circle moment, and one that encourages staying fresh and fearless. Indian artists have to experiment and try new styles to keep themselves enthused,” he says.
When I first heard of and interviewed Zaeden, he was an EDM DJ-producer riding the wave of India’s electronic music boom in the 2010s. But he says his transition into a Hindi pop artist was “more of a personal evolution” rather than a career move. “I was a teenager playing global festivals, but as I grew, so did my voice—both literally and creatively,” he says.
After performing at the EDM mainstay festival Tomorrowland in Belgium in 2018 (“which I’d say was the peak of my journey as a DJ,” he says), Zaeden turned to making original compositions and singing. His single “Tera Bina” in 2019 was arguably a result of a honed pop artist evolving toward new terrains.
In the years since his breakout 2021 album Genesis 1:1 and his 2024 sophomore effort Zaeden 02, Zaeden’s found a wider fan following compared to his DJ days. He says, “Becoming a singer-songwriter allowed me to express things that I couldn’t before. It was scary at first, but necessary. Reinvention, for me, is about chasing truth over comfort.”
Earlier this year, fellow singer-songwriter Hanita Bhambri also chose truth over comfort when she pivoted from her emotive folk singer-songwriter sound, reminiscent of the likes of Laura Marling and Florence and the Machine. With her latest album, Shoharat, which came out in May, Bhambri turned visceral like never before — influenced by goth and horror aesthetics, but also by hip-hop.
She told Rolling Stone India, “I feel I desperately needed to reclaim power. The visuals — gothic, eerie, fierce — the clothes, the makeup. After years of shrinking myself to fit expectations, I wanted to dress like my rage, my grief, my defiance. I wanted to be seen the way I felt — not pretty, but potent.”
It’s not one of the most-streamed songs on the album, but Bhambri’s turn to rap on “Bhediya” has over 68,000 streams on Spotify, which indicates that her fans are here for it. She recounts playing a demo to a hip-hop artist, only for them to tell her she shouldn’t rap “because it doesn’t sound great.” She says, “He even told me I should consider not putting it on the album. That made me want to keep it on the album even more. Because the more someone tells me not to do something, the more I wanna do it. Because ‘Maine wahi likhna hai jo bhi meri rooh kahe’ (I’ve written whatever my soul speaks). I wasn’t trying to get it ‘right’—I was just trying to get it out.”
Bhambri counts Shoharat as the album in which she “stopped censoring myself.” It was also a push back against what independent singer-songwriters, especially women, were expected to write and release. She wasn’t afraid of the reactions and wasn’t going to be “underestimated.” Bhambri says, “Some took a minute to adjust. But I expected that. When you stop people-pleasing, the reactions become more polarized. And that’s when I knew I was doing something right.”
Like Zaeden, Bhambri says the music was an outcome of being “uncomfortable rather than dishonest” with oneself. Beyond the care-a-damn leather jackets and black clothes, there was the slightly gory imagery on the album cover, plus elements of horror and violence. “I didn’t want to be ‘palatable’ or nice anymore. I wanted the outside to reflect the rage, the fire. The reinvention wasn’t a costume, it was an armor,” she says.
For Goa-origin electronic artist Anish Sood, the journey of rethinking his identity as a musician started in 2017 and culminated in the announcement of his moniker Anyasa, which is Sanskrit for “spontaneous or effortless.” He says he got an encouraging nudge: “The idea to rebrand my artist project to Anyasa came about after I had signed my debut EP Gaya with British label Anjunadeep. They felt the new sound warranted a fresh identity, and it was the perfect opportunity to wipe the slate clean.”
While his name held its own weight in international music circles, he went from using his legal name to creating a persona, building a different visual identity and “strong cultural connect” that was heard through the classically-rooted voices of artists like Isheeta Chakrvarty, Amira Gill, Bawari Basanti and more on his debut EP Gaya and later, Asad Khan on “Shiva Valley.” With the backing of the label Anjunadeep and Apple-owned music platform Platoon, Anyasa has gained more momentum than ever, which means he’s not worried about any kind of fan attrition. “There’s a genuine connection with fans due to the authenticity and uniqueness that I try really hard to bring to my sets. I can definitely feel the global audience growing, and I’m very excited for the future!” he says.
Zoya’s own reinvention on The I/O was prompted by growing older, but also seeing the growing artificialization of life due to social media content and, of course, AI. She wanted to push back against it while also telling herself that having a voice as an artist matters. “I don’t have any of the answers, but having some kind of human connection with all of these things is so important,” she says.
Hukmani, for his part, vows to continue to hop from genre to genre, simply because it’s a reflection of how he’s always experienced music. “I see genre as more of a color palette than a boundary. Each new style I try is just another brushstroke on the canvas of who I am as an artist,” he says.
Zaeden, who released a swaying, tender pop song called “Raaz” in September, says he’s already on to something else. “Honestly, I feel like I’m on the edge of another shift. I’ve been exploring the world of acting—it’s unfamiliar, humbling, and thrilling, just like music was when I started. I see a very vulnerable side of me when I’m acting and I’m excited to see how it shapes up.”
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