Nepali Music

Nepali Music refers to the various musical genres of Nepal. With more than forty ethnic diversities, the music of this country is a highly dispersed phenomenon. Although genres like pop, rock, folk, and Classical music exist, a huge number of such genres are yet to be cataloged. Many musical bands exist in Nepal, with a huge number located in Kathmandu - most of the recent ones focused in pop and rock. Rap has been known to emerge on the charts in Nepali Music from time to time.

Particularly in Nepali valleys, which also house the urban centers of Kathmandu and Pokhara, the sounds which have been reverberating, echoing, and mixing are Nepali music, “modern” songs (aadhunik geet), film songs, Western pop songs, and Indian pop songs. Starting in the 1980s, a new, distinctively Nepali music emerged out of these mixed reverberations, called Nepali pop in Nepal.

Over the last half century, singers like Prem Dhoj, Narayan Gopal, Aruna Lama, Tara Devi, and Arun Thapa have been featured in the private and public Nepali media, and they developed aadhunik geet into a distinctively Nepali music tradition. As of 2000, recordings of aadhunik geet singers like Ram Krishna Dhakal still outsold many of the top Nepali pop albums. Aadhunik geet’s main market is older, educated, Nepali music listeners.

Listeners said that Nepali music felt more close to their immediate cultural concerns, because it was primarily in their national language, Nepali, and because they could hear in it distinctive rhythms, melodies, and timbres of Nepali music.
Certain distinctively Nepali musical qualities (rhythm, singing style, instruments) can be found even in songs with strong Western musical influences.