Her music has been called many things, and many things it is. But if there are two words that best describe Susheela Raman's work, they are powerful and potent.

Yet, the prolific British Tamil singer insists that five years back her music was rather "polite," and it is only now that her sensibilities have acquired a stronger sense of freedom and abandon. Susheela was in the city to visit her parents and of course, work on music when Chennai Times caught up with her.

That India is becoming a big phenomenon globally is common knowledge. However, there is a difference between it being accepted as just something unusual and it being acknowledged as having a mainstream, global presence. So while musicians like Nitin Sawhney and Susheela Raman are big names abroad and are celebrated for their unconventional styles, they still haven't been accepted as mainstream artistes.

And it is this that Susheela seeks to remedy through a monthly club event in London. Says the singer in her deep timbre, "The club, called Outer India, will showcase visionary second generation Indian artistes or those of Indian origin. We also want to create a genre of hybrid Indian-English music. Not fusion music, but potent hybrid music.

Like in my case, I grew up in London and have learnt Carnatic music and also absorbed global music there. When I come back to India and interact with my roots, it always leads to a dynamic explosion of creative energy. This is what we want to mould into a genre."

This project apart, Susheela is also on her toes with her latest album that is due at the end of the year. It is a half Tamil, half English album that has been three years in the making, with over six years of research having gone into it. "The Tamil influence came from the fact that I was studying music with (late) Dharmapurma Swaminathan who was a professional singer of Murugan songs and learning bhakti music from Kovai Kamala. The music of legends like K B Sundarambal and Bangalore Ramani also influenced me immensely. I got a lot of the English music from my dreams. When the band and I combined both these elements, something very powerful and intense came out of it."

Having been in the global music scene for a good number of years, propagating Tamil culture and her distinct style of music encompassing the genres of jazz, blues and folk, how does she see the growth of the Indian presence? She smiles proudly, "The rock scene in India, especially in places in Shillong, Delhi and Kerala, is phenomenal. The problem is that people are very categorical about rock music.