Releasing in tribal languages (Mundari, Santali, Ho, Kurukh and more)

SUF Digitals accepts releases in Santali, Mundari, Ho, Kurukh, Kharia, Gondi, Bhili, Bodo, Mizo, Halbi, Sora, Kui and Karbi, alongside Nagpuri, Khasi, Garo, Kokborok and every major Indian language. When you create a release, you choose your language from the list headed Adivasi (tribal) languages, for the release and for each song. Nobody asks you to call a Santali song Hindi.

These are big audiences. Santali has over 7 million speakers in India alone (2011 Census) and has been one of India's scheduled languages since 2003. Mundari and Ho each have well over a million speakers, mostly in Jharkhand and Odisha. Yet artists singing in them are often told their language is not supported, because many upload forms only list the major languages.

Where a store has no category for your language yet, we file the song under the nearest language that store does list, so your release goes out on your date instead of getting stuck over a dropdown. Your release keeps your real language with us.

The steps are the same for any of these languages, and the same release reaches Spotify, JioSaavn, YouTube Music and the other stores together.

1. Create your SUF Digitals account and choose a plan. Plans start at Rs 999 a year, and you keep 100% of your copyright on every plan.
2. Add your artist name with your Spotify and Apple Music profile links. If this is your first release, mark yourself new to the stores and your artist pages are created with it.
3. Create a release and choose your language under Adivasi (tribal) languages, for the release and for every track.
4. Write the song title and artist name in Roman letters, the way listeners type them into search on a phone, and spell them the same way everywhere you share the song.
5. Upload a WAV master and a 3000 x 3000 pixel cover, credit the singers, composers and lyricists, and pick a release date. Then submit: we check everything before it goes to the stores.
6. On release day, share your smart link. It opens the song straight in each listener's own music app.

Write the title for the stores in Roman letters, for example Johar or Baha Parab. Most listeners search on a phone keyboard, so a title they can type is a title they can find.

Your own script still has a place. Share the Ol Chiki, Warang Citi or Devanagari version of the title in the release description and in your YouTube and Instagram captions, where the fans who read it will see it. Keep the words on the cover art to the title and artist name exactly as they are written on the release, because stores turn down covers whose words do not match.

Choose one spelling of your artist name and keep it. Santali and Mundari names are often written several ways in Roman letters, and a second spelling becomes a second artist page.

Many tribal-language releases are new recordings of traditional songs. A traditional song belongs to everyone, so you can release your own recording of it: in the rights step, mark the song as Traditional or public domain.

The recording itself has to be yours: your voice, your musicians, your mix. Someone else's recording of the same song, or a new song written by someone else, needs their written permission, and its writers should be credited.

One release reaches Spotify, JioSaavn, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Gaana, Instagram and Facebook, and more than 150 stores in all. Caller tunes on Jio, Airtel, Vi and BSNL are included on every plan too, and they matter for regional music: a song people keep as their caller tune earns every month they keep it.

You are paid in rupees, to your bank account or UPI, and your statements show each store and country.

Every language below can be chosen on a release today. The scripts are the ones commonly used to write each language; on the stores, titles read best in Roman letters.

Tell us which language it is. We add the languages artists ask for. To start now, see the plans or read how to upload a song on Spotify from India.