Sharanya Mosalakanti with friends she met on Lishash at an offline F16s gig at Pune last October

While Humit is available to download globally, both apps focus on ensuring that people can discover music from new genres, artistes and even languages—anything they may have not heard before. Humit has short 30 second-long ‘hums’ or snippets that are usually the best bit of a song. The user can pick any part of the song and upload it on a station, which is genre or artist related. If the users follow that particular station, they can access those hums to which they can react in the form of likes, comments. They can even message the person directly and start a conversation. They can save the track in a separate playlist on Spotify, the only audio app they are currently integrated with.

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Lishash, on the other hand, was born out of the issue of choice overload. “Why do we have to always choose what we want; why can’t technology just give us more control?” wonders Singhal. Lishash is for people who want to discover music without having to tell the app what they desire, because put simply, they don’t know what they want. The app is currently integrated with Spotify, Apple Music and Youtube. Lishash takes songs from everyone’s library and starts playing if someone does not queue their songs during listening sessions. Unlike Discord, there isn’t a set queue on this app and it recommends music based on your actions like skipping a song or the filters you add. “We initially thought we would replace how Spotify and Apple music work, but then we realised that people love playlists and will continue making them but when it comes to discovering music, that’s when social apps will come in,” says Singhal. According to Desai, that a user can share his or her personal thoughts and anecdotes, make the app stand out and give people a sense of community, something that’s missed in streaming platforms. “To know that there is something being shared with me because someone wants me to know about it enhances the discovery aspect. It’s not just some machine suggesting something to you; it is someone you care about who is putting the effort to share. That’s the social element and makes this more meaningful,” Desai believes.

(From left) Chief designer Pradyumn Awasthi, co-founders Rohit Ganapathy, Ishaan Negi and Prithvi Shankar of Humit, a social music discovery app

Since Lishash is also about building a community offline, a few people got together in Pune last October for a music gig. Sharanya Mosalakanti has been using the app since April 2021 and joined the gang. She says it didn’t feel like she was meeting them for the first time because they had bonded through Lishash. “I didn’t interact with everyone I met on a personal level but I still knew what kind of music they preferred and what bands they listen to,” says Mosalakanti. She has been part of an Indian indie music community on Discord but says that there it was just people listening to music and appreciating it. At Lishash, she says it’s about appreciating people who listen to all kinds of music.