Other than the obvious picks, we’re listing a selection of artists and tracks that have sampled Asha Bhosle’s voice, revealing the true scale of her influence.
For more than eight decades, the world has had the privilege of existing in the same era as the voice of Asha Bhosle. That’s the kind of perspective often echoed across India when reflecting on her legacy. Asha Bhosle was a cultural phenomenon whose angelic voice defined generations of film and non-film music in India.
Over the course of her eight-decade-long career, Asha Bhosle recorded more than 12,000 songs across 20+ Indian languages, a feat that earned her a place in the Guinness World Records as one of the most recorded artists in music history. But to quantify her contribution to just numbers alone completely misses the point. Within those thousands of recordings lies a catalog that continues to shape Indian cinema. From club numbers to classical-leaning compositions, playful duets and even boundary-pushing pop offerings, Asha Bhosle’s voice became a cultural timestamp for multiple generations in the Indian subcontinent.
The news of her passing this April has left a void in the global music landscape. India lost its most vibrant voice, but the legacy she leaves behind stretches far beyond her original discography and extends into the music she unknowingly helped create.
One of the most widely recognized examples of her global imprint comes from The Black Eyed Peas, who famously sampled her vocals from ‘Yeh Mera Dil Pyar Ka Diwana‘ and ‘Aye Naujawan Hai Sab Kuchh Yahan‘ in their Grammy-winning hit ‘Don’t Phunk With My Heart.‘ That moment alone introduced her voice to a global pop audience in a completely new context. But that’s only scratching the surface.
Beyond these headline-grabbing examples lies a far richer, more intricate story that runs deep through the deepest trenches of electronic music. Across decades, producers in genres like UK breakbeat, house, drum & bass, trip-hop, and experimental electronica have dug into Asha Bhosle’s back catalog, sampling her voice, reworking her melodies, and reimagining her sound for entirely new dancefloor environments.
Her voice, originally framed within Indian film narratives, found new life in underground club circuits, festival stages, and global electronic movements. Asha Bhosle leaves behind a legacy that evolves and resurfaces in unexpected places.
In this list, we go beyond the obvious and dive into a deeper layer of Asha Bhosle’s influence, listing the producers, tracks, and moments where her voice was sampled, reinterpreted, and woven into the fabric of electronic music culture. The idea is to help you discover that her influence runs far deeper than most realize.
BICEP – ‘SUNDIAL’ (Samples ‘Jab Andhera Hota Hai’)
Starting with a slice of electronica or atmospheric breakbeat, if you’d like to call it that. Both Matt McBriar and Andy Ferguson from Bicep have been vocal about their love of Indian music ever since they discovered Charanjit Singh’s 1982 album ‘Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat.’ This track from Bicep samples Asha Bhosle’s ‘Jab Andhera Hota Hai‘ from the 1973 Bollywood film ‘Raja Rani.’ Bicep retains the evocative texture of the original by subtly pitching and maintaining the ‘haunting melancholic’ narrative of their album, ‘Isles.’ In the original, the vocal sits within a funk/film arrangement. In ‘Sundial,’ Bicep detaches it from its original groove and places it over a broken, skipping arp pattern to create a piece of transcendent, ambient-house art.
Glass Beams – ‘Taurus’ (Samples ‘Dum Maaro Dum’)
Moving on to a bit of psychedelic funk with Asha Bhosle’s magic, featuring the enigmatic Aussie trio
Glass Beams. ‘Taurus’ samples one of the most iconic songs in Indian folklore from Asha Bhosle’s 1971 single ‘Dum Maaro Dum.’ Glass Beams takes the famous psychedelic guitar riff from ‘Dum Maro Dum’ and essentially rebuilds it as the core of ‘Taurus.’ What makes this flip compelling is how it reframes Asha Bhosle’s legacy. It moves beyond her voice and into the wider sonic world her music helped shape. It goes to show that her influence extends seamlessly into new genres, new contexts, and entirely different listening environments.
Deft – ‘For Sudden’ (Samples ‘Chura Liya Hai Tumne’)
Time for another unexpected Asha Bhosle crossover, this time with British bass music producer Deft. Far from a mere fleeting vocal chop or a generic guitar loop, ‘For Sudden’ feels like a full-bodied tribute to Asha Bhosle’s legendary oeuvre. The track opens with an immediate nod to history, sampling her iconic vocals from the 1973 classic ‘Chura Liya Hai Tumne’ before the lean, atmospheric production takes control of the tune. Deft cleverly integrates the original song’s legendary glass-clinking percussion, repurposing those familiar sounds to anchor a stripped-back, 2-step rhythm of his tune. It’s a gorgeous piece of introspective late-night music that can function as a haunting solo listen or a strategic, mood-shifting set breaker in a live club setting.
Prodigy From Mobb Deep – ‘Real Power Is People (Samples ‘Yeh Mera Dil Pyar Ka Diwana’)
‘Yeh Mera Dil Pyar Ka Diwana‘ makes it to the list of artists sampling Asha Bhosle, this time in a hip-hop avatar. Prodigy’s track ‘Real Power Is People‘ from his 2008 album H.N.I.C. Pt. 2 samples the song but in a watered-down version of its “dance-floor” context and re-imagined as a dark, hypnotic backdrop that supports Prodigy’s trademark brand of street politics-led music. Sid Roams, the man behind ‘Real Power Is Is People,’ samples the driving, rhythmic orchestral intro and the distinct “wah-wah” guitar licks that define the original. Having these two elements running through the tune helps him create a cinematic atmosphere that matches the song’s themes of secret societies and government control.
Travis Scott – ‘Uptown’ (Samples ‘Kamar Meri Lattu’)
We close the list with one of the biggest hip-hop stars, finding a way to sample Asha Bhosle in his music. Travis Scott samples from Asha Bhosle’s 1973 collaboration with the legendary Kalyanji-Anandji duo that produced numerous hits with Asha Bhosle. Taken from the song ‘Kamar Meri Lattu,’ the staccato horn stabs of the original provide the melody for the hook in ‘Uptown’ and drive the whole song forward. It’s one of the best examples of ‘dark-flipping,’ a sample where a sample rooted in color and spectacle is reimagined into a shadowy, almost nightmarish soundscape.
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