Vidya Vox

Indian-American singer/songwriter Vidya Vox built a thriving pop career by blending crisp electronic dance grooves and mainstream Western melodies with multiple strands of her Indian heritage, capitalizing on the audience she first assembled on YouTube. Operating from Los Angeles, she moved beyond her initial experiments of layering contemporary hits over Indian classical pieces to create her own infectious tracks, among them the uplifting “Be Free,” featured on the 2017 EP Kuthu Fire.

Vidya Iyer was born in Chennai and relocated to the United States with her family at age eight, settling in Virginia. From the age of five she studied Indian Carnatic classical music while simultaneously absorbing a broad range of Western pop. In 2015, while completing a pre-med degree in biological sciences at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., she launched the YouTube channel Vidya Vox, posting covers and mash-ups that gradually shaped her distinctive fusion of pop, electronic textures, and Indian classical elements. One early upload, pairing Major Lazer’s “Lean On” with the traditional Punjabi folk song “Jind Mahi,” quickly drew widespread attention. Throughout that first year her output centered on reinterpretations of Western pop acts including the Chainsmokers, Ed Sheeran, and Rihanna.

From 2017 onward her own compositions took center stage. She issued her debut EP, Kuthu Fire, co-written and produced with her creative partner Shankar Tucker. Now based in Los Angeles, she maintained her YouTube presence while rolling out fresh singles such as “Minnale” and “Kaadhal Thozhi” in 2018.