In the past three years, Hip-Hop has catapulted itself as the go-to sound for a lot of youngsters across the country. We’ve witnessed the first-ever Hip-Hop acts headline festivals like NH7 Weekender, witnessed multiple rap icons fly in and perform at various venues across the country, and mostly, an overall boom in the sound and source of Indian Hip-Hop in general.
With talents popping up from all around the country, the scene still has a way to go in order to completely merge and become its own being, having a solid base with recognized talents from all around India constantly in the groove and mix, and constantly reaping revenue from their hard work. The current atmosphere and state of affairs further dampen these things from manifesting, but there is still hope. A hope that we will see the more up-and-coming acts from around the country put across output that impacts the soundscape of Indian Hip-Hop that push its borders further to newer heights.
“Shastriya Hip-Hop” is a premier example of that hope. A young producer from Pune city, Vedang (Prod. By Vedang) who has been handing out his beats to different artists around the city, and setting a new tone exploring what his own sound should be like, has tapped into his niche and scope of sound to produce a classic beat tape.
Vedang is the producer behind “Gutter Rich” a sound that organically grew within the underground rap circuits of many different cities and got its own rendition. Single-handedly gathering a sort of cult following, the song spread like wildfire around the country and gathered numerous renditions and remixes. That was the first step that solidified Vedang towards building his sound (seriously, check how many renditions of this song are out there on YouTube).
He has also worked with different sets of artists around the country, including folk singer Bawari Basanti, on a song titled “Izhaar”. Check the sound out below.
East Meets West
Shastriya Hip-Hop embodies what happens when the west meets the east and vice-versa. With samples galore of legendary musicians as Asha Bhosle, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi among others, these sounds are grounded to Indian music. The EP also fuses a slight electronic touch to each of them. The result is an undiscovered gem, a sound that for many years has been budding and has finally taken form via Vedang’s rendition of how Indian music can be sampled differently to Hip-Hop.
Stream the album above, and show your support to the independent music scene by paying the artist for your listen. It’s sounds like these that need to be explored in our scene and you can pay what you want for the EP on this link – https://www.instamojo.com/prodbyvedang/shastriya-hip-hop-ep/
This one’s for all the Marathi rap fans and Indian Hip-Hop purists!
