Chetavni

Dance-friendly beats and dark subject matter make conscious hip-hop crew Swadesi’s first album both easy and tough listening. Among the most keenly awaited full-length debuts in the Indian independent music scene, Chetavni sees the Mumbai multilingual ensemble take a stand against everything that ails the nation, from communalism and corruption to income disparity and internet shutdowns. The thought-provoking tunes live up to the promise Swadesi showed on singles such as “The Warli Revolt” and a series of collaborations with electronic-music producer Bandish Projekt. We got MCs Mawali, Tod Fod, 100 RBH and Maharya, producers BamBoy and Raakshas, and mixing engineer and keyboardist Joshua Fernandes to take us through the making of Chetavni. It was recorded at percussionist and mentor Viveick Rajagopalan’s studio Half Step Audio and at The True School of Music.

Chetavni

The ominous-sounding opening track is meant to “give you a vibe of what the entire album is going to be like”, says Raakshas. “Chetavni” includes excerpts from film-maker Anand Patwardhan’s 2018 documentary Vivek and speeches by the late rationalist Narendra Dabholkar that talk about how you alone can make your own decisions and how superstitions are used to exploit people. “We found the lines to be very relevant, because even if a hundred people tell you something, you have to be wise enough to think for yourself.”

Jung

A call for peace, “Jung” is about the unofficial war being waged between India and Pakistan and how “people are fighting within the country as well”, says Mawali of the Hindi track. “In the middle of all this, somebody else is profiteering by selling weapons.” Mawali met NaaR—who’s also behind the beats on “Galliyan Bhool Bhulaiya” and “Kranti Havi”—four years ago in their Mumbai neighbourhood of Andheri, and enlisted the producer’s services because he liked NaaR’s “dark, grime” style. “A few years ago, some friends of ours from the UK introduced us to grime,” he says. “Until then, we used to listen to mostly old-school hip-hop from the US and trap. There’s a lot of intelligence in grime in which you take the same word and play with it and give it different layers. We’ve done this on ‘Jung’, ‘Bhoy’ and ‘Kranti Havi’.”

Sau Takka Sach

“India is supposed to be a secular country but that’s just in the Constitution,” says 100 RBH. “The mentality of the public is still such that they divide people according to religion and income levels. We’re seeing it now with the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and how politicians are openly speaking about the differences between Hindus and Muslims. This is happening in today’s day and age. On this song, I say that if educated people can get so easily brainwashed, then their degrees are worthless.” The Hindi track, adds Raakshas, “is heavily laid with samples from the short documentary The Making of Lynchistan”.

Sthiti

“I wrote ‘Sthiti’ around the time of the abolishment of Article 370 and the lockdown in Kashmir,” says BamBoy who raps on this Hindi song he produced. “It’s about not only the political but also the social conditions, what’s happening in day-to-day life. Like how in Parel, where I live, there are many hospitals but their patients’ health hasn’t improved for years and there’s no place for them to sleep. And how sometimes, the authorities catch you even when you haven’t done anything wrong because they want a bribe. I’ve put all that into the track and said how it’s necessary to bring about change.”

Galliyan Bhool Bhulaiya

“The lyrics to this track are the oldest of all those on the album,” says Mawali of this Hindi tune. It includes a reference to the 2014 Bollywood song “Baby Doll”, which was popular around the time he wrote it. “The middle of the album has songs about the streets because that’s how we started out. At that time, we had a superficial understanding of what’s happening in the country but we knew life on the streets and how people hustle. ‘Galliyan Bhool Bhulaiya’ is based on how tough street life is and how it’s made us rough and strong.”

Aatank

“We’ve been following Asian Dub Foundation for a long time,” says Mawali. Swadesi connected with the pioneering UK electronic-music act’s Dr. Das on social media and requested him to provide beats for 100 RBH’s Hindi verses. The rapper told us that “Aatank” was the first track he did with the crew. “I’m from Amravati and I wrote it about the mentality there where if you try to do something new, they’ll demotivate you. I would get little support when I started rapping. It made me realise that whatever you want to do in life, you should do it yourself.”

Dikhati Sapne Sadke

“The jazzy beat you hear on the song is the third one I made,” says Raakshas. “The first one had guitar and slow, sad vibes. The second one sounded very happy. I had to balance both emotions because that’s how life is today. Joshua has played a nice keyboard solo on the track.” Tod Fod, who mans the mic on the Hindi tune, adds that like “Galliyan”, “[Dikhati Sapne Sadke] is about life on the streets, and how in the same spot where a woman sells vegetables during the day, a drunkard sleeps at night.”

Bhoy

“Joshua told me that we should have a solo Bengali track on the album,” says Maharya of “Bhoy”. “I wrote the first verse and chorus to a grime beat by Skream, after which I played it to Raakshas who produced the tune. There’s a fear running through society because of the government, which can change and introduce laws like the CAA and the National Register of Citizens at any time. People are scared about how they will get the documents to prove their citizenship and about the possibility of becoming stateless. Through this song, I’m telling the youth it’s high time they wake up.”

Khabardaar

“I produced this track over three years ago,” says BamBoy about Hindi song “Khabardaar”. “I wasn’t even in Swadesi. I used to listen to Bollywood and make similar music. Dharmesh (Tod Fod) and I lived in the same area and knew each other. He used to tell me to listen to hip-hop and asked me to produce a beat for him that sounded like what one might hear if they were going into combat. It’s then I realised I can make music that sounds original. I made ‘Khabardaar’, the guys heard it and were impressed. That’s how I entered the crew.” Tod Fod adds: “I wrote the hook according to the breakdown. It’s very catchy, the kind people can sing along to. The verses are about [the importance of] being aware about what’s happening around us. India ranks at the top of the list of countries with internet shutdowns. That’s not normal.”

Kranti Havi

The first time the members of Swadesi saw a performance by BFR Sound System, helmed by reggae singer Delhi Sultanate aka Taru Dalmia, it felt like an education. Mawali says: “His emceeing is amazing. He explains what each song is about, who wrote it, why they wrote it. He tells people to see for themselves what’s wrong and what’s right, to go to protests and speak to the farmers and decide.” Over the last couple of years, the crew have occasionally performed with Dalmia, who suggested they do a track together. His English verses open the multilingual “Kranti Havi”, and Mawali, 100 RBH and Tod Fod spit rhymes in Marathi and Hindi. “The lyrics talk about how people are being divided and how the right wing is talking of revolution but that real revolution occurs only when you question everything and you expand your consciousness.”