How to release an Urdu song: ghazal, nazm, qawwali and Sufi music on every store

Urdu is the mother tongue of about 5.1 crore people in India (Census 2011). It is spoken across the Hindi-Urdu belt and the Deccan, it is an official or additional official language in Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Delhi, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and other states and union territories, and it is Pakistan's national language.

Urdu music is built on poetry. The ghazal, shaped by poets like Mir and Ghalib, became the leading lyric form of North India; qawwali belongs to the Sufi shrines; marsiya and noha mourn Karbala. Many Bollywood song lyrics are described as Urdu too.

One SUF release reaches Spotify, JioSaavn, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Gaana, Instagram, Facebook and 150+ stores, and every plan includes caller tunes on Jio, Airtel, Vi and BSNL.

If you searched "Urdu song upload kaise kare" or "Urdu song upload karne ka tarika", these are the steps.

1. Create your SUF Digitals account and choose a plan; prices start at Rs 999 a year before GST, and your copyright stays 100% yours on every plan.
2. Add your artist name with your Spotify and Apple Music profile links. For a first release, mark yourself new to the stores, and your artist pages come with it.
3. Create a release and choose Urdu under "All languages" in the language picker, for the release and for every track.
4. Upload a WAV or FLAC master (16 or 24 bit, 44.1 to 96 kHz) and a 3000 x 3000 pixel square cover in JPG or PNG. The free cover art checker runs the stores' checks first.
5. Credit the singers, composers, lyricists (your shayar) and producers, declare the rights for each track and choose a release date: you pick it from the Rising plan up, and on Debut it is set for you, 7 days after you submit.
6. Submit. SUF checks everything against the stores' rules before it goes out, and on release day your free smart link opens the song in each fan's own music app.

We found no store-run playlist just for Urdu songs as of October 2026, and Urdu is not one of JioSaavn's language pages. Apple Music does have an editorial curator for this music, Apple Music Sufi & Ghazals, but the playlists we found under it are Essentials collections, each built on one ghazal singer's own recordings.

From the Pro plan up, SUF pitches your release to the editors at Spotify, Apple Music, JioSaavn, Gaana, Amazon Music and YouTube Music, which puts an Urdu ghazal or qawwali before the people who build their wider Indian, folk and devotional playlists. A ghazal album can be pitched whole.

Have the release locked at least 14 days before release day; Spotify only takes pitches for songs at least 7 days from release. Your listeners' plays also feed Release Radar, Daily Mix and Discover Weekly. Placement rests with the editors and is never guaranteed, and SUF never buys streams or playlist spots. More on playlist pitching.

Urdu is written in the Perso-Arabic Urdu alphabet, usually in Nastaliq, and there is Urdu Braille as well. For the stores, give the title in Roman letters, the way listeners type it into search on a phone.

Put the Nastaliq title in the release description and your YouTube and Instagram captions, where Urdu readers will look for it. Ghazals are often known by their first line, so choose one Roman spelling of that line and keep it everywhere.

Artist names go in English letters only (letters, numbers, spaces and . ' & ( ) -), with one spelling everywhere, or you end up with two artist pages. Keep emoji, ALL CAPS, "feat." and promo words like Official, Lyrical, Video Song, Latest, New Song or Trending out of titles, and match the cover's words to the title and name.

Muharram is the season of marsiya and noha, the elegies for Karbala, and it moves each year with the Islamic calendar, so check the dates early. A Sufi saint's urs, the death anniversary kept at the shrine, is when qawwals are busiest.

On Pro and above, lock the release at least 14 days before release day so it can be pitched. For a noha before Muharram or a qawwali for an urs, lock it three to four weeks ahead.

Every track is declared as original, cover, traditional or public domain, or remix. A ghazal or nazm you wrote and composed yourself is original; a well-known ghazal sung in someone else's composition is a cover, and needs the song owner's licence. A remix needs the original recording owner's permission.

Traditional qawwalis and kalam sung for generations belong to everyone: release your own recording and mark it "Traditional or public domain". The recording must be yours. Read more on cover songs and devotional music.

YouTube Content ID takes only original songs with no samples or non-exclusive beats, and traditional or public domain kalam, marsiya and noha never go on it.

Caller tunes on Jio (JioTunes), Airtel (Hellotunes), Vi and BSNL are included on every plan, in Urdu as in every language, and a song people keep as their caller tune earns every month they keep it.

You keep 80% to 95% of royalties depending on your plan, paid in rupees to your bank account or UPI with statements by track, store, country and month. From the Pro plan up your own label name goes on every release, and qawwali groups or ghazal labels with several artists can use label plans from Rs 4,999 a year plus GST.

Urdu is one of every Indian language we release in. See the plans, or read the guides to Punjabi songs and Sufi kalam and Kashmiri sufiana kalam.