Sakre’s latest album Raja Has No Friends (Beat Tape Vol. 2) blends nostalgic South Indian melodies with modern lo-fi and hip-hop aesthetics. The album offers a soulful reinterpretation of classic film music through atmospheric textures and rhythmic experimentation.
Joel Sakkari, also known by the moniker Sakré, is a Bangalore-based producer who instils his memories and South Indian cultural heritage into the lo-fi hip-hop genre, leading to an unusual but evocative listening experience.
Raja Has No Friends seamlessly blends Eastern and Western influences, as well as elements of the past and present. This unique sound is a reflection of Joel’s personal background and the result of years spent honing his craft through play, experimentation, and dedication. The sonic textures he builds feel both original and deeply familiar, provoking a sense of nostalgia that seems to lie at the heart of the entire beat tape.
Sakkari doesn’t just mix East and West—he melds them. You’re not just hearing sitars over trap drums here. You’re hearing old South Indian melodies flipped like Dilla flipped soul records. You hear a cultural memory that feels lives in, not borrowed.
Clocking in at under 30 minutes, Raja Has No Friends isn’t a grand statement, it’s a subtle one. The beats don’t have a giant crescendo, they just… go on. And while some might find the tape a bit too uniform in tempo or tone, there’s a meditative consistency to the whole experience that feels intentional.
Sakré leans heavily into mood over momentum. There are no big beat drops here, no bassline that’ll blow your speakers. Instead, there’s texture: ambient hiss, distant vocals, reverb-soaked instruments that float like they’re coming from the next room.
But here’s where the critique creeps in: not all tracks stand out. A few fall into the “cool but forgettable” category — pleasant while they’re playing, gone from memory when they’re over. It’s the curse of lo-fi: cohesion sometimes comes at the expense of distinction. A bit more variation in rhythm or structure might have given the tape more replay power.
Nevertheless, Raja Has No Friends feels compelling: it feels personal. You can sense the years of digging, sampling, tweaking, and second-guessing that went into it. It’s not polished to death — it’s warm, raw, and human. You don’t just hear the beats, you feel the process.
For listeners familiar with South Indian classical or folk music, the sampled melodies evoke intimate memories of family, festivals, or quiet evenings. For those outside that context, the emotions still translate, aided by the album’s warm, enveloping production.
In many ways, Raja Has No Friends (Beat Tape Vol. 2) is a sonic meditation on the diasporic experience, caught between worlds, languages, and musical languages. It invites listeners to reflect on their own relationships with culture and solitude, making the tape as much a personal journey as it is a musical one.
Tracks like Anbae, will make the listener want to sway and dance, whereas something like Jhanak may make you feel just as though you’re in the middle of an action film. Churaliya was probably the perfect way to culminate the album: a timeless classic that almost everyone knows.
The album affirms Sakré as an artist deeply connected to his roots and unafraid to explore the emotional terrain of loneliness and identity through his music. While it could benefit from more dynamic shifts to broaden its appeal, its core strength lies in its heartfelt authenticity and elegant fusion of tradition and modernity.
