Hip-Hop Stars Increase Profits in India's Bollywood Market

Last week, Bollywood film RA One grossed over £500,000 in the first three days of its UK release, which is pretty impressive for an Indian science fiction movie…ever heard of it, writes Rena Dipti Annobil

Well, if not I’m sure you’ve heard of Akon who features on the soundtrack.

Chammak Challo is one of the biggest Bollywood tunes of 2011 and a collaboration between Indian music directors Vishal-Shekhar and Akon, who sings capably in Hindi too (see video below).

RA One is the most recent East-meets-West musical success featuring hip-hop artists dipping their toes into India’s multi-million pound film and music industry.

Ludacris collaborated with Bhangra trio and Overground Live performers RDB on a track for one of this year’s top-selling international hits, sports comedy Speedy Singhs.

And Snoop Dogg features in the title track and video (below), which is guaranteed to put a smile on your face, for the massively popular 2008 comedy Singh is Kinng.

Asians love films and hip hop, so something tells me this trend is going to continue.

Seems like a very wise business decision to me as India is one of the world’s next big superpowers with a population of more than 1.2 billion, and not to mention the huge number of Indians living all over the world; that’s a huge new market.

I’m hedging my bets 50 Cent will be the next rap star to make a move into Bollywood; remember where you heard it first!