a look back at 2025: thank you for three years of Tamil-American culture 🙏🏾

if 2025 was a movie, this is our ending credits. thank you for three years of helping us create and define what it means to be Tamil American. from 8,000+ community members across 65 events to 800k+ streams of the ar•ram•bam tape — 2025 was remarkable. here's our full year-end recap celebrating everyone who made it possible, plus what's next for 2026.

Author

Hari Mahesh
January 08, 2026

what's good y'all — happy new year! 🎊

as we step into 2026, we wanted to take a moment to look back at this absolutely wild year we just had. and honestly, if we were sitting here in January 2025, there's no way we would've known the year was gonna shape up the way it did.

but here we are in 2026, and wow. what a year.

2025 by the numbers:

  • 88,000+ community members attended events

  • 200+ multi-disciplinary artists & creators

  • 65 events hosted

  • 10 cities across the USA

  • 40k+ digital community members across channels

  • 1M impressions, views & interactions per month

  • 23 Tamil Meetups & parties

  • 28 dance workshops

  • 18 production projects

  • 16 original songs released

  • 5 comedy shows

  • 5 concerts

  • 2 volumes of "the experience"

and dare we say, idhu dhan ar•ram•bam.

we put together a recap video to celebrate everyone who made this possible — the artists, the community, the team, and you. watch it below 👇

so let's break down what made 2025 so special.

Tamil Meetups: our core 🎶

Tamil Meetups started just under three years ago in January 2023. what began as an aspirational idea to bring the Tamil community together has now become a genuine third space for us to celebrate and embody Tamil culture.

this year, we took it to the next level — hosting Tamil Meetups across NYC, DC, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Austin, and Raleigh. we just wrapped our 15th Tamil Meetup in New York City, and the key thing here is: we're not going anywhere. Tamil people as a community, we're here, the culture is here, and we're here to stay.

and what makes it even more special? these events have been attended by non-Tamil people and non-brown people experiencing our music and culture in new ways. that's powerful.

Tamil Dance took over the country 💃🏾

2025 was the year for Tamil dance. we hosted countless dance workshops in NYC and expanded across the country to DC, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Dallas.

we partnered with incredible Tamil and non-Tamil dancers, domestic and international, who showcased Kuthu, classical, semi-classical, and other forms that have endured generations. these dance styles passed down through word of mouth and teaching — it's been gratifying to see how the community has embraced them organically.

and those concept videos we created? they blew up to millions of views across all our platforms, putting our local Tamil dancers on the global scene.

ar•ram•bam records: the Tamil American sound 🎙️

this one's really special.

it started at the end of 2024 with one song — we got Vy and Praveen together at Donut Shop Studios and said, "let's make a Tamil American song and see where it takes us."

what it became this year took a life of its own.

in February 2025, we hosted a 48-hour hackathon in Brooklyn where 16 Tamil American artists came together to create the first original mixtape of independent Tamil-English songs — the ar•ram•bam tape.

the goal was simple: tell the story of being Tamil American through music. what does it mean to be Tamil American? we're at this intersection of being both Tamil and American, and we're still defining what that means culturally. this tape was our way of exploring that identity through all its different aspects.

when we released the tape in June 2025, it grew beyond our wildest imagination:

  • 800k+ streams across all platforms

  • 200k+ listeners from 147 countries across the globe

our top countries on Spotify? India, United States, Canada, UK, and the Philippines. the fact that India is #1 is powerful — our culture, Tamil American culture, is going back to the subcontinent and showing people there what Tamil American culture looks like.

and get this: 2.7k fans have ar•ram•bam as a top 10 artist. we would've never expected that.

the ar•ram•bam experience: building the first Tamil American world 🌍

for the tape launch, we realized we couldn't just release it into the void. Tamil culture isn't just music — it's dance, art, fashion, all the different facets that make it as rich as it is.

so we created the ar•ram•bam experience — what we like to consider the first Tamil American world.

when you walked into the experience (volume one in NYC in June, volume two in San Francisco in November), you experienced three parts:

  1. Visual art gallery — Tamil visual artists, fashion designers, and game designers told the story of being Tamil American through their art forms. the first time many of us experienced a Tamil art gallery in NYC and SF.

  2. Live music performance — we performed all the music from the tape with incredible dancers in both cities telling the story visually through their movement.

  3. After party — DJs ripping up the dance floor with Tamil music, independent originals, and local dance groups showcasing their own unique styles.

39 artists in New York and 36 artists in San Francisco came together to make these experiences possible.

beyond the music 🎭

we also had the privilege of working with Sunthar V this year, bringing independent Tamil comedy to San Francisco, LA, Dallas, Austin, and Raleigh. we partnered on his Tamil Comedy Club events and Vanakkam parties in NYC and SF — amazing spaces for the queer Tamil community and their allies.

for concerts, we brought back the third leg of Sahi Siva's Unnaale album tour with Vidusan and Supaveen, and welcomed Prito for his Prito Sounds experience in NYC and SF.

we ended the year in October with our Artist Showcase where several records artists from the tape performed their own individual music to the community in New York.

during Women's Month, we created "Tamil Woman on Top" — a photo shoot driven by Krish's vision — and hosted a photoshoot party in Long Island City.

and for the first time ever, we dropped our first line of merch. the idea? wear our Tamil American culture proudly wherever we go — not just through music, dance, and events, but through our fashion and style too.

thank you 🙏🏾

to all of you reading this: thank you.

thank you for trusting us. thank you for being part of the community. thank you for three years of helping us create, define, and in some cases redefine what it means to be Tamil American — not just in America, but globally.

thank you to all the artists who've had the confidence to leap and tell their own stories through what they do best.

and thank you to our media team and everyone behind the scenes who tirelessly worked to make everything possible for all of you. this is a thank you letter to all of you.

growing up in America in a Tamil household, being part of what we now consider Tamil American diaspora and culture — it's honestly healing childhood things. not feeling seen, not having our identity represented, not having our stories told. we really appreciate all of you for allowing us to tell those stories.

we want to emphasize: this Tamil American diaspora and culture we're building, we want it to be a melting pot. for Tamil and non-Tamil people, brown and non-brown people, to be part of this and embody it in their own ways. to see themselves in some form or see their own stories through the stories we're telling.

what's next for 2026? 👀

right now we're heads down thinking about next year, and we can't wait. we're gonna build upon everything we did in 2025 and take it to the next level.

if this speaks to you, if you want to tell your story, if you want to be part of other people telling their stories of what it means to be Tamil American — tap in. we're available on Instagram, on our website, wherever ar•ram•bam is.

kicking off 2026: Semi-Classical Dance Workshop Tour 💃🏾

we're starting the year strong with something special — Suhana's Semi-Classical Dance Workshop Tour across 5 cities in February.

Suhana will be bringing the beauty and grace of Tamil semi-classical dance to communities across the country. whether you're a seasoned dancer or just curious about exploring this traditional form, these workshops are for you.

as usual, this is just the ar•ram•bam 🫡

the ar•ram•bam team 💎