Skip to main content
DJ Mag Top100 DJs
59
DJ Chetas
| NEW ENTRY

It’s not only America that’s currently experiencing a dance music epiphany. India — and its population of 1.25 billion people — is beginning to demand the world’s biggest DJs, and Mumbai’s DJ Chetas has been riding this cultural explosion since 2012. 

What makes Indian dance music — and DJ Chetas’ music in particular — an interesting proposition is that it’s a cross-pollination of traditional Indian music with western club culture. And that’s where DJ Chetas has built his huge following — by incorporating the best of Bollywood vocals into big-room mash-ups that have been a huge hit in his native India. 

While it might not be to everybody’s taste, there’s no denying the popularity of DJ Chetas, and dance music in general in India. In addition, DJ Chetas is using his considerable influence, time and money to create a network of music schools in India to give studio time to those who might not be able to afford it.

With the likes of Diplo and Steve Aoki now regularly touring in India, and a growing middle class hungry for big-name DJs (and dance music in general), India represents a huge new market, ripe with potential for its own artists and touring DJs from around the world. DJ Chetas is merely a product of this explosion, and we fully expect to see more and more DJs from South Asia breaking into the Top 100 DJs poll in the coming years. “With a DJ Mag Top 100 tag, this opens up a whole new international market to bring Indian sounds too!” the man himself enthuses.

 ANDREW RAFTER