Susheela Raman

Susheela Raman hails from the movement of immigrant and second-generation musicians from the Indian subcontinent based in Britain, who perform a fusion of traditional and classical forms from their homeland with contemporary beats and dancehall tracks from Western Europe. Raman was born to immigrant parents in London in 1973, and her family soon moved closer to the subcontinent, taking a home in Australia, where she soon started learning and performing South Indian classical song. With a bevy of recitals under her belt, she began working with more blues-based music (soul, rock, R&B) for a while, alternating between that and new studies in Hindustani song with Shruti Sadolikar. Returning to England within a few years, she began work on the idea of fusing Indian classical forms with more contemporary Western ones. Aided by Sam Mills, who had done similar projects with one of the contemporary Baul singers, Raman worked with a huge number of foreign artists on the Salt Rain project, released in 2001. She was nominated as the first world music artist for the British Mercury Prize, and satisfied with the results of Salt Rain, Raman used the same basic guidelines to create Love Trap, released in mid-2003.