Entertainment Lawyer Priyanka Khimani On Managing The Complexities Of The Entertainment Industry

A.R. Rahman, Lata Mangeshkar, Badshah, Shreya Ghoshal, Arijit Singh, Sushmita Sen, AP Dhillon, Shraddha Kapoor — these are just some of the clients from the entertainment and music industry whom Priyanka Khimani has represented. The founder of Khimani & Associates, she is known for navigating complex and emerging markets, particularly in South Asia. Having orchestrated some of the most talked-about entertainment deals, she has helped her clients adapt to new market dynamics while ensuring their intellectual property and creative rights are vigorously protected.

Her ability to create legal frameworks that safeguard creators’ rights — whether negotiating royalties or securing distribution rights — has helped redefine how the Indian entertainment industry approaches IP protection. She is a staunch advocate for ensuring fair representation and robust legal protection for artists, musicians, and content creators, and is also the founder of Women of Music India (WoMI), a non-profit organisation that advocates for women’s representation and rights within the Indian music industry.

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Interestingly, she was raised in a modest chawl in Mahim, Mumbai. Her parents ran a photocopying shop that doubled as their home. From there, she has gone on to secure a spot on Billboard’s 2025 Top Music Lawyers list and the 2023 Billboard Women in Music list. Just a few days ago, she was appointed as the Strategic Advisor and Co-founder of Songpact, to lead global expansion and partnerships.

In a recent podcast at The Free Press Journal’s studio, she laid bare the complexities of the entertainment industry. But two topics that she spoke about definitely stood out.

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On managing modern-day celebrity crises

“In today’s times, everything and anything becomes a reputation issue. It’s so easy to cause damage, but it’s so difficult to mitigate that. And I see it from largely the side of the person that is in the eye of the public storm. One part of it is to have to deal with the media, which includes journalists, publicists, and how is that being presented and reported. The other are the legal repercussions of it. Sometimes we have instances where somebody could be facing an arrest before we know it.

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The person in question is wondering — do I need to seek protection? How do I respond? Do I just keep quiet? Do I say something? And the commercial repercussions and ramifications. So many times, in the midst of a crisis or when you’re caught up in something that is going to affect your brand, before you know it, events are getting cancelled, contracts are getting set aside, you're being terminated, dropped. And that’s where someone like us comes in, to help parties evaluate what is the reaction proportionate to what has actually happened.”

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Missing... Women’s rights in the music industry!

“There’s barely any female representation in the music industry — both on the business side and the talent side. On the talent side, sure, we’ve seen some of the bigger names that we know of. But if you look at a tier of especially the current tier of independent artists today, there’s a disproportionate number of male artists compared to female artists — even when it comes to line-ups. It’s become a modern-day version of the locker rooms, where you have boys with more boys championing more boys. And I’m all for it. I don’t think, you know, you championing somebody in terms of music has to not be merit-based. But surely we’re not saying that there aren’t talented women in this country, right?”