What The Music Industry Doesn’t Talk About Enough: When Tall PR Claims Fall Short

There is a particular kind of press release that lands in a music journalist’s inbox with the confidence of a papal decree. It announces, in breathless detail, that an artist has been “Grammy-nominated,” or that their latest single is “chart-topping,” or that they performed for “several thousands” at a prestigious venue.

A healthy amount of skepticism and journalistic digging can lead you to the fine print, which reveals the truth is a bit more nuanced. The “Grammy nomination” technically belongs to a record the artist appeared on as a featured vocalist or instrumentalist. The “chart-topping” refers to a regional streaming playlist that changes daily or weekly. The “several thousands” number rarely adds up in reality. Sure, appearing on a billboard in Times Square shows you’ve arrived, but ultimately it’s bought advertising space.

Very little of it is unusual. It’s part of the playbook of contemporary music PR — a language in which the literal and the implied are carefully kept just far enough apart that no one can be accused of stretching the facts. Until they are, in fact, accused.

The recent clarifications involving sitarist Rishab Rikhiram Sharma, Anoushka Shankar, and the Ravi Shankar Centre led to a very public discourse around what constitutes the guru-shishya relationship. Corrections have been issued publicly, and through them, there’s a lot to learn about how marketing can get ahead of itself.

For years, Sharma has been introduced — and has introduced himself — as the “youngest and last disciple” of Pandit Ravi Shankar. It is the kind of biographical detail that we in the media quote without questioning, that bookers use to justify fees, and that audiences carry with them into concerts and post-gig Reels.

Anoushka Shankar addressed the claim directly in a conversation with Humans of Bombay. The sitarist-composer praised Sharma’s talent openly and said he was “clearly speaking to people in a really wonderful way.” But she also clarified that her father had given Sharma “a couple of lessons, very informally,” and that the person who had genuinely trained him intensively was Parimal Sadaphal, one of Ravi Shankar’s own senior disciples. “Somehow, that has gone, blown up into some story of him being his last disciple or the youngest disciple, which isn’t true,” she said in the interview.

Sharma’s own account, as documented in a detailed statement from his side, describes the events rather differently: a formal Ganda Bandhan ceremony (the sacred ritual that represents the lifelong bond between a guru and his disciple), hours of teaching, and a structured training arrangement put in place after Pandit Ravi Shankar watched a YouTube video of Sharma performing raga tilak and conducted a formal lesson to correct his composition.

The Ravi Shankar Centre, in a formal statement signed by its Director and dated Feb. 27, 2026, went further. It described the January 2012 ceremony — during which a thread was tied around Sharma’s wrist — as “an informal string-tying” conducted “at the persuasion of Rishabh’s father, and due to affection for the young child.” The Centre stated that no priest was present, no ceremonial thread was prepared, no formal announcement was made, and that the event “was neither conducted as a formal ‘Ganda-Bandhan Ceremony’ nor was it conducted according to traditional custom.” It also noted that between the ceremony in January 2012 and Ravi Shankar’s departure for the United States in March of the same year, there were “a few classes” and not several-hour formal sessions. After March 9, 2012, the Centre states, Ravi Shankar “gave no further lessons, phone calls, or supervision to Rishabh.” He passed away in December that year.

These are not minor discrepancies. They describe fundamentally different relationships.

The marketing that often strikes the strongest chord for readers (and before them, the media) is one that’s grounded in emotions and relationship dynamics. It’s something that can’t be audited beyond a point, and perhaps this is where the tightrope walk begins.

The machinery that produces these narratives is not malicious. It is opportunistic in an increasingly loud and overcrowded barrage of attention-seeking content. The commercial logic is obvious. It can lead to sustainable artistic careers or build just enough buzz until the artist plots their next eye-catching move.

Publicists understand this. So do managers, bookers, and the sections of the press that run artist profiles without much appetite for scrutiny.

No artist’s booking would evaporate because of any disputes when a narrative has already done much of the heavy lifting. Talent still plays a big role in influencing discerning audiences, and to that end, Sharma has held his own. His Sitar for Mental Health initiative brought the meditative values of Indian classical music to audiences who might never have encountered it. Playing sold-out shows at stadium venues in major cities and accruing millions of followers who are cheering his every move show that he’s built something of his own on the basis of his music, regardless of training.

But the industry’s attention economy often demands a hook and something superlative, and artists or their teams sometimes reach for one that cannot quite bear the weight placed on it. Audiences are currently split about marketing spiel – they can sometimes be cautious or happily join the hype train, regurgitating info without verifying. The artist wins, but they’ve got to be grounded in reality rather than stretching the facts for some more minutes in the spotlight.

The lesson for the music industry, artists, and audiences alike is that transparency and context matter. PR can highlight talent and achievements, but clarity about the facts behind titles, affiliations, or relationships helps preserve credibility and trust. Artists and their teams can celebrate milestones without overselling them, while media and audiences can cultivate a habit of asking the gentle questions that separate narrative from nuance. In an age of short attention spans and lore-driven marketing strategies, such practices may be the difference between getting the artist fleeting hype and long-lasting respect.