If one were to hear the title of city-based rapper Arshaq Malik’s new single, You & Your Gods, one would thing it has undertones of politics or the current scenario in the country. But the 25-year-old insists that the song, just like everything else he writes, is personal. “The track talks about religion, the general power it holds and people who are obsessed with complexion. Take religious people for example.
I come from a very conservative family where they are trained to raise children in a very directional light, no fault of theirs. And if one has lived long enough in South India then one would have figured out that a lot of people have this inferiority complex with skin complexion, which is an obsession,” he says. The new hard-hitting track, which released on February 15, also incorporates elements of metal with low growls, which is no surprise since he is also a part of the metal outfit Trash Talk. The song also features Chennai-based producer 47K (Deva).
Directed by Karim Poocha, the video features dancer-choreographer Swaroop Kishen who dons a bandaged mask-like outfit while he performs the dance form called bone breaking. “So Deva and I go back and forth to produce together, but the lyrical content is taken care of by me.” Malik who was born in Trichy and raised in Abu Dhabi, states that though he was attracted to mainstream hip-hop in the beginning, it was the underground talent that caught his interest. “I was drawn to conscious rap. So, when I got to college, I started Trash Talk. Last year, I started my hip-hop project with Deva and worked on an album titled Joint Custody, which released in April 2019.
The album focused on city issues with a track, Make It Rain, which talks about water shortage,” says Malik.Malik states that a three-track EP with 47K, titled Young KK, is in the works. It revolves around the planet succumbing to pollution. “The Earth’s surface is polluted and the rich and privileged have moved to reside underground with ample supplies of oxygen. The character, Young KK, smuggles clean oxygen to the people suffering on the surface, in order to monetise the situation. I’m obsessed with such concepts of dystopia,” says Malik, who adds that an animated video on the concept is underway with Bengaluru-based visual designer, Preran Rai.