“It’s important for me to pay homage to my roots,” Raf-Saperra tells Apple Music. “That means Punjabi desi folk music and hip-hop from New York and the Bronx—those are my origins.” Since the 2020 release of his breakthrough single “Glassy Riddim,” British Punjabi vocalist Raf-Saperra has built a global fanbase thanks to this distinct blend of soaring Punjabi folk vocals, thumping bhangra beats, and hip-hop lyricism. Collaborating with everyone from UK bhangra producer Sukshinder Shinda to East Coast rap pioneer Conway the Machine from New York collective Griselda, Saperra’s music plays like classic ’90s hip-hop by way of the British Asian dance floor. While 2024’s EP 5 Deadly Venomz explicitly drew on his New York rap influence with features from the likes of Dave East and Big Body Bes, his latest project, Venomz Vol. II, ups the ante with hammering dhol drum beats, fast-paced Punjabi lyricism, and guest verses from Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah, Griselda’s Benny the Butcher, and UK bhangra vocalist Kulvinder Johal. The result is an infectious, uptempo collection that honors Saperra’s South Asian diaspora identity across borders. “I’m celebrating the foundations and I’m doing it for the culture,” he says. “It’s a passion project that’s only going to continue.” Read on for his in-depth thoughts on the EP, track by track. “Art of War” (with Kulvinder Johal and Bobby Kang) “While hip-hop was exploding in America in the ’90s, in the UK, bhangra was simultaneously coming into its own. I was listening to people like Wu-Tang and Big L as well as bhangra vocalists like Kulvinder Johal. It’s long been a goal of mine to have Kulvinder on a track like this where the beat adds a grimier edge to Punjabi folk. While I was writing for this project, I reached out to his son and thankfully, he said yes to the collaboration. It’s a filthy opening track to this body of work and the perfect way to begin.” “Butcher’s Scale” (with Benny the Butcher and Taj Aulakh) “Venomz Vol. II started life with this collaboration. I was playing at the Jazz Cafe Festival [in South London] in summer 2025, and Benny the Butcher was on the bill after me. We hung out the next day and chopped this up there and then. I played him a bunch of beats and as soon as this came on, he loved it—funnily enough, it was made for the Griselda collab on the last Venomz so that was a stamp of approval to have him vibe with it. He had no pen or paper, he sat there with his eyes closed while the beat was playing, and after two hours, he went into the booth and laid down his bars completely from memory. These people are craftsmen, they belong to a different era. It ended up being the first and quickest track to be made on the project.” “Akh Dasdi” (with Mani Longia and Taj Aulakh) “I’ve been a fan of the Punjabi vocalist Mani Longia for a while, and we managed to connect in London last year when I told him straight up that I wanted to collaborate with him. I sent him the beat for this, which is a hooligan anthem since we wanted to introduce higher BPM on the project to allow the tracks to be played at weddings and at the club. Alongside ‘Crook’ and ‘Pend Khalli’ these are the dance records on the project. This one is full of greazy Punjabi lyrics and slang straight from the street.” “Snake Style Kung Fu (Prelude)” “The first project in this series is named after one of my favorite kung fu flicks, Five Deadly Venoms, which I used to watch all the time as a kid and which was also a really popular underground ’90s hip-hop mixtape in New York featuring producers like DJ Premier and Tony Touch. I wanted to make a love letter to these kung fu/hip-hop crossovers as well as all the Wu-Tang skits I heard growing up. The vocal sample here isn’t actually from the film but it’s my friend doing a voiceover that is reminiscent of all the poorly dubbed films we grew up watching.” “Venomz Chamber” (feat. Da Flyy Hooligan and Bobby Kang) “I’ve known [Northwest London MC] Da Flyy Hooligan for a long time, and I’ve seen first hand how deeply connected to American hip-hop culture he is—he even has a song with Westside Gunn from as far back as 2015. With each project, I really enjoy curating the feature list and the world these songs live in, and with Da Flyy Hooligan, I wanted to showcase the UK hip-hop community, which is its own thing here and very worthy of celebration.” “Left with Me” (with Bobby Kang) “It’s always really important that my projects have different subject matter spoken about across their tracks. It goes in hand with the collaborative curation on the features and adds to the overall storytelling. ‘Left with Me’ is a slow, sad joint, something different from the rest of the record—it’s a nice bit of warm punctuation to relax the listener before the madness kicks in again. It shows everyone it’s OK to slow down for a second.” “Sanju” (with Ghostface Killah and Trox) “Wu-Tang has always been the most successful movement for me when it comes to putting craft over culture, since everyone knows them and they’re still pure hip-hop at their core. Ghostface Killah is an idol of mine, and I met him in 2024 when we were at the same studio. I took a shot in the dark and sent him this track and he loved the production and the beat. I’m a singer before I’m a rapper and he really liked how I had crafted the melody. Sanju is a nickname for the actor Sanjay Dutt, who has his own style and is an absolute bad boy, and the track is called that because we’re celebrating fly shit from the UK to India and the US. This one is proof that Raf-Saperra has brought Wu-Tang into the Punjabi music ting!” “Crook” (with Taj Aulakh) “Before meeting Benny the Butcher, this was the first track I had made for either of the Venomz projects. I was on a Paris Fashion Week trip in 2024 and things were all kicking off, so I wanted to showcase something there that could capture the fly-boy energy I was experiencing at the time. We ended up being able to play this at the Jazz Cafe Festival last year and the crowd really popped off to it.” “Pend Khalli” (with Bobby Kang) “‘Pend Khalli’ is one of the final tracks I made for the project as it came together super last-minute on a trip to New York. I remember hearing the switch-up in the beat and feeling that it sums up Venomz really well. It’s got this undiluted, unapologetic desi dhol beat that then drops into a nasty bassline, which is so reminiscent of stuff I grew up listening to like Panjabi MC’s album Legalised. It’s a true marriage of hip-hop and Punjabi music, and I just know this one will be proper mosh pit territory when we perform it live!”