“Though we’re really sweet boys, we become these tough guys [when we take the mic],” says rapper, singer, producer and sound engineer Tsumyoki, aka 20-year-old Nathan Mendes. He and fellow MC Kidd Mange—18-year-old Daniel Sequiera—pull no punches on their collaborative EP, Way Too Messy. The five-track set spotlights two collectives: the duo’s Goa Trap Culture, which also features rappers Elttwo and 2jaym; and Gully Gang Entertainment, which has Tsumyoki as a solo artist and is led by the sunshine state’s most beloved hip-hop hero, Divine.
Way Too Messy originated at a GGE writing camp Tsumyoki and Kidd Mange attended in early 2021. “We were like, ‘There are so many crazy artists here,’” says Kidd Mange. “We just felt really productive. We said, let’s try and do a song every day we’re here. We ended up with three and all were pretty hard.” The EP represents the duo’s mission to put Goa hip-hop on the map and change the perception of what life is like in India’s supposed party hub. “I don’t like the stereotype,” says Tsumyoki. “Every time I go out of Goa and I meet a stranger, they’re like, ‘Oh my God, you’re from Goa, your life is a vacation.’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m out here grinding ten times more because Goa is so small and no one knows it has a scene.’ It took me years before I got Gully Gang’s attention.” The fast and sharp bars of Way Too Messy should make India’s hip-hop scene sit up and take notice. Tsumyoki and Kidd Mange give Apple Music a track-by-track breakdown.
Way Too Messy (feat. DreddAf & Karan Kanchan)
Tsumyoki: “[Rapper and Gully Gang signee] Shah Rule and I were going through beats [at the camp] and he played this one that [producer] DreddAf had sent. It had an Indian vibe to it. I was like, ‘What the hell! This is crazy. I want this ASAP.’ [Producer] Karan Kanchan came in much later. He gave the track a little more oomph and a boost of energy. He was like the frosting on the cake. What Mange and I do for most tracks is that we try to find cool bars, cool flows and fit them together with the beat. ‘Way Too Messy’ is supposed to give you this nasty type of vibe where he and I are just going in and going in with these bars. Mange comes in with this super-fast flow. It doesn’t really have a message. We were just showing off our skills.”
Kidd Mange: “This is one of those performance songs, you know what I mean? It’s one where you can just go crazy.”
All Black Trap Trap 2
Kidd Mange: “I was initially supposed to hop on ‘All Black Trap Trap’ but for some reason, I couldn’t write to the beat. After all this time I finally wrote for it. It’s one of my favourite hooks from the EP.”
Tsumyoki: “I made ‘All Black Trap Trap’ in 2019. It was released on a [2020] mixtape called This Mixtape Is Garbage. I’ve always felt that it never reached its full potential. Even mixing, mastering, post-production-wise, I felt it could have been taken to another level. The second I heard Mange’s verse, I was like, ‘Man, this is the finishing blow.’ He came and absolutely murdered this beat. It’s his best verse.”
Kidd Mange: “I was trying to implement a British drill influence.”
Tsumyoki: “My verse is the same [as on the original version]. I was going for UK-type grime. I’ve always wanted to put out something with that kind of accent.”
Pao Wala
Tsumyoki: “It’s us paying homage to our Goan heritage with Hinglish bars. I thought that not only will people jam to it, they will be like, ‘Yo, this is kind of funny as well.’ It was drill just because we were working on a drill beat at that point of time.”
Kidd Mange: “I remember walking up and down the entire time we were writing the song. We didn’t stop until we were finished and went in and recorded it.”
No Games
Tsumyoki: “The tempo is like an old-school BPM but beat-wise it goes really hard, like a trap-type beat. We did some beautiful melodic layers for the track. ‘No Games’ is for all the people who want to play games with us. We don’t tolerate any of that. It was originally called ‘No Games Brav’. Mange and I are just [big] on the British accent. We make so many jokes in the accent. It’s really hard to explain [why] without [people] thinking that we’re jackasses.”
Kidd Mange: “I think ‘No Games’ is the [EP’s] most bar-heavy song.”
Commentz
Tsumyoki: “I was stressed out by the way people take a small thing you say and blow it out of proportion. I was sick and tired of how that was taking a huge toll on my mental health. The song is about cancel culture and how it can take a toll on an artist’s health because everyone looks at us as robots. They expect us to be perfect. The vibe production-wise I wanted was inspired by J. Cole’s ‘a m a r i’, the way Timbaland produced it.”