Like many first-generation Indian Americans, singers in the a capella group NY Masti were raised on a steady diet of Bollywood music at home and pop music on their car radios. Somewhere between graduating high school and starting their careers, the two genres merged, becoming an all-vocal fusion of music, complete with “filmi” Hindi songs and soulful hip-hop ballads.

The five 20-something women, dolled up in black dresses and nude-colored stilettos, recently performed a mash-up of Adele’s “Someone Like You,” Amit Trivedi’s “Iktara” and Usher’s “Without You” for a crowd of college students and families at last month’s Pappu Can Sing Buddy event in Manhattan.

Organized by the non-profit performing arts coalition Anamika-Navatman at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the evening showcased three South Asian a capella groups: city-based NY Masti, Stanford University’s Raagapella, and Princeton University’s Tarana.

As the sun set behind the floor-to-ceiling windows of the dance studio, some of the approximately one hundred audience members were left to standing room only. Tickets for the concert had proven successful even before the walk-ups, a testament to the steadfast popularity of collegiate South Asian a capella groups.

Penn Masala, an all-male ensemble from the University of Pennsylvania, is credited for pioneering the fusion music trend that largely reflects Indian American tastes in the pairing of Hindi and Western songs.

Founded in 1996 by four Indian-Americans rehashing Bollywood songs in a dorm room, the popular student group now has a revolving door of 14 mostly Indian American men, seven albums and more than 15,000 fans on Facebook.

“I think every year gets better and better,” said Bharat Moudgil, a 24-year-old University of Pennsylvania law student and singer who grew up listening almost exclusively to Hindi music. “There are a lot of places in the world with a fairly large Indian diaspora that enjoys our music.”

Since joining the group seven years ago during his freshman year at the college, the Florida native has traveled with Penn Masala to London, Los Angeles and Mumbai, where they performed for Reliance chief executive Mukesh Ambani. They also regularly perform on the college circuit, mostly at East Coast schools.

Mr. Moudgil said the group is well received by its largely South Asian audience, even in India, where a capella has yet to garner attention. And with arrangements of Hindi pop, as well as John Legend and Coldplay songs, Penn Masala also has a presence on online music services Spotify, Grooveshark and Pandora.

While the group has capitalized on the ability to match Bollywood film music with the top 40 commercial hits, spinoffs of the South Asian a capella trend have tested the formula.

Stanford’s Raagapella, formed in 2002, includes Korean and Chinese students, and has fused Farsi and Tamil songs alongside the Hindi-English standard. They have recently started to match the themes, not just rhythms, of the songs they weave together, like the melancholy Persian love song “Ek Karevan” and Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

“Even if a song is in a different language, to an audience they’ll be able to relate to the heartache and loss,” said 20-year-old Raman Nelakanpi, the group’s music director.

While a capella is a strictly vocal tradition, Princeton’s co-ed group, Tarana, added an instrumental component to their ensemble with tabla, guitar and violin. Kishan Shah, 18, who founded the group during his freshman year of college in 2010, said the 20 members perform a variety of Pakistani rock with jazz and Hindustani classical music.

And NYMasti, one of the few women South Asian a capella groups in the country, feature more soloists and three-song sets than traditional doo-wop harmonizing. Founded in 1999 by a group of NYU students, they channel singers like Leona Lewis and Rihanna, coupling the R&B crooners with Hindi film ballads.

“We want to put it out there that we can beat-box just as good as the guys, that we can do everything,“ said Priyanka Padode, an NYU student in the group.

At a March event in Hell’s Kitchen, the audience was wooed as much by the shock factor of unlikely mash-ups: Tarana’s combination of Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean” and “Dil Chahta Hai,” for example – as they are by sometimes remarkably powerful voices.

Raagapella’s energetic choreography and a slapstick Indian version of R. Kelly’s slow jam “Hotel” gets as much supportive applause and hooting at their smooth arrangements of Usher and Bollywood songs. They clearly enjoy putting on a show.

And their varied styles have gained the a capella groups traction beyond their family and friends.

For the rest story: http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/south-asian-a-capella-groups-fuse-bollywood-and-pop/