The Creators | Armaan and Shaayak

Kartik Sundar, Class of 2020

The Creators is a fortnightly series of artist profiles of Ashokans who are actively involved in different creative fields including music, photography, creative writing, and visual or performing arts.

It’s no secret that today Hip-Hop is a dominant form of music world over. While to most of us, Indian hip-hop seems to revolve around the Yo Yo Honey Singhs and Badshahs, Armaan and Shaayak (class of 2020) are out to change that perception.

Although his background is in slam poetry, Armaan’s never shied away from his hip-hop influences. Presently working with Azadi Records, he is eager to break into the Indian hip-hop scene in a big way. He aims to bring lyrical music to the forefront of a hip-hop culture that seems to have lost an integral part of its roots. More than anything, though, Armaan sees hip-hop as a way to express his emotions — both his personal troubles as well as his dissatisfaction with the government.

Shaayak is something of a prodigy on the guitar. It’s not uncommon for people on his floor to wake up to blaring electric solos in the middle of the day, but that’s just the level of dedication the diminutive producer has to his craft. An avid follower of hip-hop in all its forms, Shaayak aims to bring something new to the stale state of production in India

I sat down with the duo earlier this week for a discussion on their inspirations, future, creative process, and their thoughts on the contemporary hip-hop scene.

Kartik: Armaan, you have a background in slam poetry. How did you get interested in that? And does it have any influence on your rapping?

Armaan: For me, slam poetry started because I got to do a workshop with Phil and Sarah Kay, and I really wanted to meet them. So, I had some poetry sessions with them and then I started performing. During one of those performances someone asked me if I rapped, and at the time, I didn’t. But I performed this piece that felt like a blend of slam poetry and rap. People seemed to like it.

Who are the artists that inspire you and influence your work?

Armaan: Nas, J Cole, Eminem and Kendrick and, currently, Denzel Curry.

Shaayak, I know you are a big fan of Denzel Curry. How has your production style been influenced by him or other artists?

Shaayak: I have always been trying to make music, be it on a guitar or whatever. Then I discovered that everything we hear is made on a computer. And I thought, “that’s something I am good at”. I always wanted to learn more instruments. Obviously, that takes a lot of time. But I already know what I want to play on those instruments so with that vision and skill, which took me a lot of time to develop, I felt like I could do something.

Production is not an easy task. How long did it take you to acquire the skills?

Shaayak: I would say it took me around three years because, in the eleventh and twelfth grades, I wasn’t studying. I was completely focused on music. So, every day, I used to play the guitar for one and a half hours and spent the rest of the time on YouTube, watching music stuff. So, I picked up and I learnt and just kept going. In my first semester of college, my creative project for Professor Alex Watson’s class was making a song. The idea of being a producer was always in the back of my mind. I have always enjoyed rap music, given the producer has much importance as the rapper. The reason is that in so many songs the contribution of the producer is phenomenal.

Especially now rap is at least 50% production and 50% rap. On your song too it says “Produced by Shaayak”, what do you think about the recent rap scene?

Armaan: Honestly, it is mostly the Production. I’d say 70% of it is the producer.

Most rap songs nowadays are extremely generic; it’s as if a beat is made and words are strung together to match the beat. Your song, however, is more different: both the beat and the lyrics are matched very well and given their due. What was the process behind that?

Armaan: The only reason I got into the scene right now is because I think most of the rappers out there are utter trash. So, it makes a lot of sense to me to just get right into it and preserve the tradition of hip-hop in a way, because I don’t see that being done by people like Honey Singh and Badshah. Shaayak and I discussed a few themes because we wanted to try out a standard template first. The idea behind the first track (Quicksand) is to get people’s attention, and then hit them with more content driven music. The process basically is discussing themes and trading songs and sounds that inspired us with regard to the themes. For example, if ‘ambition’ is the theme, and I have ten or twelve lines written I send them to him; he has an idea and then we decide the technicalities of the music. There is a lot of back and forth.

Your first track is an aggressive, braggadocious track. Do you want to also make more politically inspired music?

Armaan: Yeah for sure, because nobody is doing it right now! I think it’s because everyone is afraid. Nobody is talking about things that are happening in the country because there is a lot of fear that gets heightened by instances such as the attempted assassination of Umar Khalid. So, people are not saying things because they are worried that they will either get shot or get thrown into jail. We are in fact doing a track about that, just the fact that everyone is scared. I think if some of us stop getting scared, if I rap about it, then maybe others will stop getting scared too.

Aren’t you scared about what the consequences might be as your viewership grows?

Armaan: It definitely is scary, but there is no other alternative. I don’t want to remain silent and let go of the freedom that all of us are born with.

Have you faced any backlash yet?

Armaan: No, not really. The circles in which the track was circulated were really limited. Besides the politically charged tracks haven’t come out yet. But the beats are ready, the lyrics are ready. We just need to record. Once it gets out maybe I will face some backlash but right now, nothing.

What can we look forward to in the future?

Armaan: The next one we are going to do is a track called “Saffron Ablaze” which talks about how we are still not free. Because freedom is also a state of mind, it is not just being able to do things that you normally do in the world, it also has to do with what you can think about and what you can say. Lately, so much in this country has been counted as ‘sedition’. If your expressed views do not align with the popular opinion then it is counted as sedition, that’s not how it should be. This is some warped sense of patriotism that is being propagated because patriotism actually lies in critique.

Shaayak: For me, production and the guitar will go hand in hand. I don’t want to stop playing the guitar. In fact, I see it as an asset rather than as a detriment, because I can use it when I want to. So many songs people listen to, they don’t even realize that there is live instrumentation on it. Especially now hip-hop is varied and there is such a wide scope to do things. I might combine it with production by doing a solo or using it as a loop, just whenever inspiration strikes.

Armaan and Shaayak’s first track, “Quicksand”, is out now.

Find them on social media: https://www.instagram.com/armaanyadav/

The author is a staff writer with The Edict.