No bump, just chill!

Manpriya Singh

Chill Bump? As in the music that you hear while chilling! “No, chill bump as in goose bumps,” chorus the rap music duo of what all could lie in a name. A premonition of what to expect once you plug into their creations, perhaps. Alliance Française de Chandigarh in association with CITCO presents Chill Bump.

Past magic

Founded in 2010, it’s been half-a-decade of a collaborative endeavour towards making and promoting music. “We are constantly listening to vinyls, digging up old music, but eventually recreating something totally new,” shares the duo having opened for Wax Tailor and C2C. “Sometimes the idea is to keep the essence alive, sometimes it’s about giving a completely new touch to the old music.” Quiz them on some of the old songs and artists that have played an inspiration to create something new. They laugh, “No artist does that, give out names because what we create is completely new and unrecognisable from the original composition,” shrugs the duo comprising Miscellaneous (MC) and Bankal (beatmaker). Meanwhile, among mainstream rap artists, Kendrick Lamar, remains one of the musical icons. “That’s because he continues to be mainstream and commercially successful and yet is very original. “We also don’t follow trends, or do what others are doing in the music industry.”

Coherent whole

Out with their debut album, Ego Trip, last November, it’s been eleven months of constant travelling since. This time, take it on the face value. “Ego Trip is literally about a man’s journey from birth to death.” A parallel journey on which the ego embarks and comprises, “eleven songs that deal with subjects like frustration, death, how we see life and death, procrastination, tour life, routine; sometimes negativity.” The genre itself is associated with all emotions intense, sometimes drugs, often violence and a lot of venting out in between. “Yes, that’s true but we create our music spontaneously, just do it and then come back and think about what we did and put the project together once it’s a coherent whole.”

Knowledge bank

It’s been two to three days and one performance in Delhi. “The audience in Delhi opened up song by song and at the end of it they were really having a good time.” So much for the audience, there is no word on the artists. “We don’t know much about Indian music.” Perhaps Bollywood or classical artists? “We have heard one of the songs from the film Devdaas. And we know about Aishwarya Rai.”

(To perform on September 23 at Plaza, Sector 17, Chandigarh, from 6 pm onwards)

manpriya@tribunemail.com