Why We’re Finally Turning Up the Volume for Folk Art: GlobalKulture Music Festival 2025 Is the Moment Karnataka Needed

Spread the love

Bengaluru: In an age of digital raves, trending audio, and stage lights programmed to the beat of EDM, folk artists are often left behind—their music deemed too raw, their stories too rooted, their rhythms too real for the mainstream stage. Folk and tribal art forms, which once carried the spirit of entire communities, have been pushed to the margins in entertainment and culture. Their audience shrinks with each generation. Their instruments gather dust. Their songs fade, not because they lost meaning, but because we stopped listening.

But not anymore.

This August 9, the tide turns. Bengaluru will host the GlobalKulture Music Festival 2025, Karnataka’s first-ever large-scale event dedicated exclusively to tribal and folk artists. Held at Garden City University from 10 AM to 6 PM, and marking the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, this festival is a rare cultural reclamation—one that’s free, inclusive, and resoundingly rooted in the soil of tradition.

What Makes GlobalKulture Music Festival 2025 Historic?

For the first time, a public platform this grand will celebrate the original musicians of the land—the percussionists, singers, storytellers, and dancers who’ve preserved oral traditions, ecological wisdom, and resistance movements through performance. GlobalKulture Music Festival 2025 is not a token tribute. It’s a festival where every beat carries history, every note breathes memory, and every voice demands to be seen.

Organized by the nonprofit GlobalKulture, which works to preserve and promote traditional arts, this event brings together artists from across Karnataka’s tribal belts and rural communities. It’s a sonic map of a state too often flattened by pop culture and forgotten in the glamor of new-age music.

What to Expect – A Celebration Without Commercial Filters

Live Folk and Tribal Performances: Expect to hear what Spotify won’t show you—songs sung in mother tongues, instruments crafted from forest resources, and percussion rooted in ritual. This is Karnataka’s rawest music, unfiltered and unforgotten.

Storytelling Sessions: Tribal elders and community leaders will narrate stories of land, loss, climate, and kinship. You’ll walk away with more than tales—you’ll carry truths.

Workshops for Youth: Interactive sessions will connect younger generations to crafts, rhythms, and oral traditions, bridging a widening cultural gap.

Multimedia Archive Showcase: A special exhibition from the Budakattu Multimedia Archive will feature audio-visual documentation of tribal life—photos, sounds, and stories that rarely make it to galleries.

Voices That Echo Through Generations

The GlobalKulture Music Festival 2025 is honoured to host a distinguished lineup of guest speakers whose contributions span art, governance, research, and cultural preservation. The panel includes Padma Shri Somanna, renowned primitive tribal artist; Padma Shri Rani Machaiah, former president of the Kodava Sahitya Academy; Padma Shri Manjamma Jogathi, acclaimed Jogathi performer and former president of the Karnataka Folklore Academy; and Dr. Deepti Navaratna, neuroscientist and Carnatic vocalist. Other speakers include Christo Joseph, Director of Strategy at Garden City University; Harsh Vardhan Umre, former IRS Commissioner; K Rajesh Karanth of the Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports; B Takappa, folklore expert and former academy president; Tritone Crisantemo, founder of Denmark’s MasterPlants Orchestra; Dr. Sreenivasa Murthy, visual anthropologist; Rob Tholenaars, president of INBCB; Swaroop Murgod, Creative Director at News18; and Prabha Urs, Deputy Director at the Karnataka State Tribal Research Institute. Their presence is a testament to the festival’s mission of bridging tradition and contemporary thought, ensuring these cultural narratives are amplified across generations and sectors.

Academic & Cultural Panels: Discussions led by researchers, artists, and practitioners on the future of Indigenous representation, cultural sustainability, and heritage rights.

Volunteer Opportunities: Students are encouraged to join behind the scenes—documenting performances, working with artists, and learning through real-world engagement.

Why GlobalKulture Music Festival 2025 Matters Now

Across Karnataka and India, tribal and folk traditions are endangered—not by nature, but by neglect. As cities grow and content accelerates, the intergenerational transmission of art becomes harder. The traditions that once united villages are now isolated to obscure pockets, without funding, platforms, or recognition. Artists become laborers. Their craft becomes a weekend curiosity, not a cultural priority.

GlobalKulture Music Festival 2025 stands in direct opposition to that decline. It argues, through action and amplification, that these artists are not relics—they are relevant. That tribal knowledge is not outdated—it is essential. That folk music is not background—it is the backbone.

By naming the festival after its vision—GlobalKulture, with the motto Education Through Art—the organizers are asserting that art is not an accessory to education. It is education. And no curriculum is complete without the rhythm of the land.

A Cultural Invitation, Not Just an Event

More than an event, GlobalKulture Music Festival 2025 is a call for cultural accountability. It invites academia, media, policy-makers, artists, students, and everyday citizens to show up—not for a selfie, but for solidarity. Because when we show up for these artists, we show up for the values we claim to stand for: diversity, justice, and inclusion.

And while entry is free, the cost of ignoring events like this is far too high. For every forgotten artist, we lose a fragment of our collective identity.

So this August 9, trade your playlist for the pulse of a drum. Replace auto-tune with the sound of memory. And be part of something Karnataka has never seen before—because when GlobalKulture Music Festival 2025 begins, culture won’t just be consumed. It will be reclaimed.