Perfect track record – Leisure News

New Delhi’s Tilak Nagar reportedly has over a dozen rehab clinics. Some of the youngest in the area are addicted to chitta, a synthetic drug that’s derived from heroin. In Punjabi, chitta also means white. It’s clear that Prabh Deep’s latest song ‘Chitta’ draws on the word’s double meaning. On a track that’s exhilarated and fast-paced, Deep sings, “Mai kite ni nashe par veche ne boht, haraam de paise haram-ch jaane (I haven’t done drugs, but have sold them a lot. This dirty business will never leave you alone).”

Much like the other songs in his upcoming album, Deep, 26, assumes the persona of the character he is singing about. “You go through that time when you’re all hyped up and you’re the boss. When reality hits, it’s all kind of different. This guy is that character; he’s hyped up about success,” he says over the phone.

As Deep continues to talk, one feels he is perhaps not just trying to reconcile his past selves, but also people he knew in the past. The rapper-producer specifically refers to friends and supporters he had from the start, some of whom succumbed to addiction. On his knockout debut album Class Sikh, produced by ace beatsmith Sez on the Beat, Deep shunned rhymes about materialism and replaced them with an in-your-face storytelling about all the drug abuse and violence he had seen growing up.

Released in 2017, the album went on to become one of the most refreshing, hard-hitting and important releases in Indian independent music that year, forcing many to rethink the limits and possibilities of Punjabi music. “I don’t claim to be the king or the best rapper in India in my songs, I just try to prove it in every single I drop,” Deep had said in an interview at the time of Class Sikh’s release. His efforts are again conspicuous now.

In just three years, Deep is now well entrenched in the top tier of Indian hip-hop. Deep was recently roped in by makers of the now critically acclaimed Paatal Lok, an original crime-thriller series by Amazon Prime Video, to write and perform a song for the show’s original soundtrack. The resulting song, ‘Toofan Main’, lays bare the violence and brutalities of the modern world and fits right into the show’s dark theme.

With the release of his EP, KING, last year, many endorsements too came his way. But to measure his fame is to distract ourselves from the very point his music tries to make. KING, for instance, is a deep and soul-searching record that together addresses international politics, inner turmoil and the music industry. In ‘Amar’, he is preparing for his death, but then in ‘Maya’, the philosophy on offer is soothing and self-assured.

At the start of the nationwide lockdown in March, Deep dropped ‘Pandemic’, a song where he compares being locked in his own home to the isolation the people of Kashmir have experienced after Article 370 was scrapped without warning.

When ‘Chitta’ released on the new streaming app Resso in May, Deep added playful phrases like “litty lit” to our lexicon, but anyone who has been in the audience for his no-holds-barred performances will know that his ethos exceeds celebration and euphoria. He wants to stir an unbridled energy. He says: “I’m angry but now I know how to put it into words better. Pehle main direct bol deta tha. I have to connect with different age groups to put my message across. When you grow up, I think that this is what happens.”

The rapper returns to talking about the “different characters in different situations” on his upcoming second album. He suggests it has a song for every mood. “You can pick (any) one and listen to it. There is a meditative zone as well. You can put it on and go out of the world,” he says. While there’s another single expected in August, most of the album’s details are still being kept under wraps as Deep is keen to make sure it releases at a time that is both better and ideal. “I want people to be okay first, and have a nice headspace, so that they can listen to it without any pressure, because it’s a really heavy album,” he says.

Deep has seen his share of turmoil. He had dropped out of school, for instance, but even more significantly, he had lost his grandfather in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. As his new album gets prepped, Deep says he has at least two other projects ready, one of which specifically addresses the ’84 riots. In his process of healing and connecting with old friends, he has found inspiration for more material already. “After this album goes out into the world, I’m going to pull fans back to the real world with the next one,” he says.