Shakti

Shakti is an international musical ensemble founded by guitarist John McLaughlin with tabla master Zakir Hussain, violinist L. Shankar, and percussionists Ramnad Raghavan and T. H. "Vikku" Vinayakaram. Their intense sound combines Carnatic and Southern Indian music, improvisation, and vanguard jazz. Their debut, Shakti with John McLaughlin, appeared in 1976 and charted, as did A Handful of Beauty (1977) and Natural Elements (also 1977). They split for nearly 20 years before reuniting as a sextet with Hariprasad Chaurasia, a bansuri flute master, and Indian mandolinist U. Srinivas. They renamed the band Remember Shakti for an eponymous double album in 1999. They toured until Srinivas' death in 2014. Shakti reunited to record and release the Grammy-winning This Moment in 2023, with Ganesh Rajagopalan replacing Shankar. In August 2025, Shakti released its 50th anniversary recording, the live Mind Explosion.