Ask anyone who grew up with a cassette deck and a favourite Bollywood soundtrack, and they will tell you: there was something different about the 90s. It was a decade of sweeping strings, soaring playback vocals, and melodies built to be sung at the top of your lungs on a road trip — or on a dance floor, decades later, at a wedding in Toronto.
For Raina Sen and Shan, the era is more than nostalgia. It’s the foundation of a two-decade performing career, and the beating heart of every Rhythm & Hearts show.
“The 90s gave us songs that were made for a live room,” Shan explains. “Big hooks, real instrumentation, vocal lines that let a singer actually perform, not just recite. When we bring that to a stage today, with a full band behind us, audiences feel it immediately — even guests who weren’t born yet when the originals came out.”
That cross-generational pull is exactly why the Rhythm & Hearts setlist leans so heavily on the era: it is one of the few musical bridges that can move a grandparent and a teenager onto the same dance floor at the same time.
A typical Raina & Shan set moves deliberately — opening with a soulful, ghazal-inflected number to settle the room, building through fan-favourite duets, and climaxing with the high-tempo anthems that guests are waiting to dance to. It is a structure borrowed directly from the concert stages Raina and Shan performed on for over 20 years alongside major Bollywood and international acts.
No two Rhythm & Hearts events sound alike. Every booking begins with a conversation about the guest list, the era they grew up on, and the moments — a first dance, a grand entrance, a surprise tribute — that need their own song. That customization, built on a foundation of genuine different genres and era’s music mastery, is what keeps clients coming back for their next celebration.
