MC Amrit was kind enough to take out time of his busy schedule to sit down for a chat with us. From his decision to not work on an album right now to the secret behind his voice modulation, MC Amrit speaks about all aspects of his art and life in much detail. Here is the full interview –
Hello Amrit Bhai, How is life? How have things been with you lately?
Hello Bhai. How are you man? My life’s going well. Things have gotten better for me lately. A lot of things have changed in my life. I am learning a lot of new things. I have changed my attitude towards a lot of things. I have become better as a listener now. I am looking at things from a perspective to study and understand them. So yeah, things have been better of late. Ups and downs keep happening but life’s good.
You started off under the stage name Yash Dhawan, which then changed to MC Amrit. What led to the change? Why the name MC Amrit?
Yes bhai, I started my rap career under my original name Yash Dhawan. I stuck with it for one and a half years but I eventually realized I don’t want to perform under this stage name. Not any special reason for the change other than the fact that I felt I needed to have a proper stage name to build an identity for myself. Hence I named myself Amrit. In my family, I was closest to my grandfather who unfortunately passed away. He used to tell me a lot of Hindu mythological stories in my childhood which I really cherished listening to.
I spent most of my childhood hearing me narrate anecdotes from our Hindu Sanatan Dharma. The common theme in all of them was “Amrit” which was the crux of all. In every war, in every sacrifice and offering made by every ‘Rakshas’, they all desired to obtain ‘Amrit’ which most of them never got. Hence I named myself ‘Amrit’ because I wanted to be the key focus. And I added MC before the name because I am an MC No Cap!
You are amongst the few rappers who rap with so much hunger in all their songs. Every song, every verse, and every bar testifies to your hunger and passion. What is hip hop for you?
Thank you for the compliment Bhai. Hip Hop for me is reality. It is the perspective from which you see the world. I am doing a Masters in Journalism, so I see Hip Hop and Journalism as one and the same – it is a mode of expression. Yes, I do agree that I cap sometimes, we all do it but that’s just a way of presenting. Hip Hop for me is the expression of my reality. I feel really good when my listeners connect and relate to it. I feel some things become easy and light when you say it out loud. That’s the lens I see hip hop and my reality with.
One of your standout Skillsets is your voice modulation which not a lot of people are comfortable executing. Another USP about you is your unique ear for beats. Be it Malayi or Zaza, you have a unique sense of beats. Can you please break down the process behind both?
I select my beats very consciously. I have this weird idiosyncrasy, maybe call it narcissistic behavior but I just love hearing my own voice. I really really do. Hence I really enjoy hearing my voice in as many different tones and vocal textures as possible. I don’t care about the genre or anything like that. I just want to hear my voice in as many different ways as possible. Hence I also select my beats accordingly. Be it Zaza or Malayi, I select them based on how I want my voice to sound.
“Nasha Mukti” is our team’s favorite song by you. Simple question – How did this song come about?
In my life, in my immediate surroundings, there are a lot of people who get got trapped in such vices. I am sure in this day and age, we all have might such people in our lives. So yeah, I have closely seen a lot of people in my life go through this pain. So I got inspired by their pain and made the song. As I said earlier, Hip Hop is the reality for me. No one wants to hear their voice, so I narrated their story with mine.
On one hand where more than half of the industry doesn’t care about cover art, there you are who mostly sticks to class art pieces as project covers. Any particular reason behind that?
It’s all about the vision. Everyone has a vision. I won’t say that my cover arts are a class apart. They just align with my vision. In fact, I never cared about cover art in the beginning. But ever since Polsta came into my life, he has become a really good friend of mine. Polsta is the one who made the cover art for “Yellow Palette” and more recently, the artwork for “Zaza”. Since he came into my life, he explained to me that cover arts are also important. He gave me a new perspective. He explained how there has to be a vision behind the cover art and the colors used.
Talking about projects, when can we see an album from your side? Been a while since “Yellow Palette”.
Truth be said, there is no album coming from my side. Until I get signed, until I have 10 lakh rupees in my bank account just for the album, it’s meaningless to put one out. The album for me is a huge deal. I’ll put an album out when I have resources to fund top-notch production, top-notch music videos, top-notch everything. But I have a few tapes coming. I won’t name it but I have a new tape with Pinnocio bhai coming out super soon. It’s in the post-production stage currently. Writing and Production is done. You’ll hear it very soon.
What are your future plans? Can you share details about your future releases and collaborations?
I have no future plans as such honestly. I haven’t marked anything yet. It’s more of a go-with-the-flow kinda scene because my life is flowing well currently. Workflow is good and some cash flow is also getting generated. Future plan is simple – Do good work, make more people listen to my music, and get their well wishes. After all, we are all working for that. As far as the future releases are concerned, as I said, I have a tape with Pinnocio bhai. I also have collaborations lined up with ReVo Lekhak, 2facebleed, and Gauntlet coming out super soon.
Lastly, share one unpopular opinion about the Indian Hip Hop scene
This is something that I have been observing a lot among my peers and artists across the spectrum. I don’t know where it has come from; maybe from the West, maybe from art itself,, or maybe from the music business but artists these days are more focused on being characters. They spend more effort in building a character than building their music. Instead of being real, they are trying to build a character to sell their songs. I am not a big fan.
– Interview Curated by Suresh Menon
