The desi vibes of Pataka Boys

livemint.com:

Brown Sauce, the two rappers flexing their lyrical muscles over choppy, twitchy percussion and the occasional burbling synth. Within two days, they’d written five tracks. They realised they had an album on their hands.

“Sonny is such a good rapper and the competition really made me bring my A-game as well," says Mukhi. “We were educating each other with the references we were dropping, and then also just flexing on each other lyrically to entertain ourselves." As they worked on the album, a few key themes emerged. One was the celebration of the Indian diaspora and its kaleidoscopic cultural heritage, embodied in the hyper-referential multi-lingual rhymes and cross-continental beats, but also in the star-studded lineup of desi guest features, including Indian-American rapper Heems, Delhi rap duo Seedhe Maut, British-Bengali rap pioneer M.O.N.G.O and UK Punjabi pop artist Juss Nandhra.

“It’s about being Indian rappers pushing the boundaries of rap music, and not just being the Indian guy who does rap," says Mukhi. “And everybody on the album is on the same level. People who have been pushing hip-hop culture and music forward, without going ‘hey I’m an Indian person, look at me!’" Songs like Glassy Junction—named after the UK’s first Punjabi pub in Southall (now closed), owned by Sathi’s uncle—and Bud Bud Ding Ding also push back against the racism that has been ever-present in the British Indian experience, turning slurs into badges of pride.

Punjabi Munde (feat. Sikander Kahlon), which pays homage to the classic Sukhbir Singh track with the same name, is a vibrant expression of Punjabi pride. This fascination with the homeland extends to the album’s music videos, shot during a trip to India, which create an