Get to know Raaghav, the 19-year-old artist hailing from Jabalpur. We sat down for a chat where he opened up about the inspiration behind his recent project, delving into the conceptual nuances that make it truly special. His love for music shines through as he discusses how he intertwines his metaphorical perspectives with beautiful sounds. Read the interview to know more about his journey as we explore the beauty of his artistry and catch a glimpse of what’s on the horizon for Raaghav.
Hey Raaghav, we are glad to have you over for this conversation. Before we start the interview, how would you describe yourself to someone unaware of you?
Yo, I am Raaghav: a 19-year-old hip-hop artist from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh and I’m currently an engineering student at BITS Pilani as well. I am just a very simple boy trying to make stories through music, making something I can look back and be proud of. I have been trying to create stories through poems from a very young age, like when I was 12 years old, but in 9th standard, I was introduced to hip-hop music and that changed a lot of things for me. Many artists’ music has inspired me to do several things in life and I want to give back to hip-hop by weaving my own stories.
Tell us about the theme of your album, ‘Kaagaz Ke Phool’
“Kaagaz Ke Phool” by the name signifies a lot about the project – Flowers made of paper, they seem to be very attractive from a distance and look very alluring by the sight of them, but they are not real flowers, they do not have that natural essence in them. Similarly, we as human beings are fragile and always in some suffering, trying to find some hope or love in the world; which is not real to the core, you might have it for sometime but it will eventually show you that there is some sort of suffering in everyone’s life. This was the fundamental ideology of compiling this project in one theme.
The album differs from your debut project, ‘Enigma’, conceptually and sonically. How do you think you have transitioned as an artist?
“Enigma” was the first project I released in 2021, Feb; things were very different for me back then, I had no mic or even any knowledge of what and how of music, I just wanted to write because I was getting inside my head and as the projects elaborate to be named “Every Night Is Giving Me Atrocities”, it helped me to write my sufferings and feelings in a paper and let me get free from it. While sonically, it just happened to be a culmination of inspirations that I had. I was very shocked to see how diverse that project was once it was done. Now talking about how that and KKP had sonic and conceptual differences, I was making no music for like 2 years after Enigma due to my studies but I knew what I had to do with my music once I was free, I wanted to convey stories: Kaagaz Ke Phool is a sonically linear tape that tries to build a universe in its own; though it’s a little raw and messy, I have attempted to incorporate whatever I thought.
Tell us about your creative writing process while curating such an abstract project. How do you come up with rhyme schemes that suit the storyline?
To be honest, writing comes off very naturally to me and it’s not like I am writing for a specific project when I write. During the process of writing and recording, I realize the zone I’m in and the shape my music is taking; that is when I mould it into a project, somewhere in between. I just try to express what I’m / I was feeling in the moment and somehow it just makes sense, maybe because I have a core set in my mind.
As an independent artist, designing an album requires a lot of intricacies such as productional and vocal features. How exactly do you think the features in the album complement your tone?
I never thought I’d be able to work with different artists this early, to be honest, but this project has helped me a lot in building connections, listening to feedback, implementing and failing different sounds, and redoing everything again and again. Talking about the features specifically, I would start with Rajnandani: She has been an integral part of my life for 2 years and she helped me a lot with this project as well (inspiration-wise) so it made sense that she’ll be the narrator for the same. She has voiced the beautiful intro and outro of the project and I’ll say this is not the end of it, I had some other plans that I’ll execute in the future for sure but yeah, really thankful for Rajnandani’s contribution to this one. Next, 8GBRAM, he’s a college peer and an outstanding producer-rapper, we have made more than a few songs together and I assure you, this guy is a different breed with all the sounds he’s sitting on. Meet Thosani, TNT Beatz, and AYJAY also made a very valuable contribution to the project, I was very lucky to have them on my project where they outdone themselves. Finally, I sent the drafts to many of my inspirations in the DHH space like wolf cryman, shauharty, encore abj, etc but Siege was very humble enough to give me a voice note that I could use in my title track, Really Brown was my top song of the year and appreciation coming from The Siege himself was a surreal experience, really thankful for that.
Tell us about the soundscape of ‘Kaagaz ke Phool’. Do you believe that a storyline project like this also needs a perfect soundscape to complement it? What was your production process whilst shaping the album?
The process was just to deliver a connected musical experience to the listener without losing myself for it. As you can see in the cover art beautifully designed by my sister Ridhima Paharia, there are some album covers that have influenced the sound – 4Your Eyez Only by Cole and Madheera by Arslan and Shauharty are the core inspirations for that. Production-wise, I just trusted my instincts and didn’t try to do anything out of the box for this one, coz I wanted the message to be clear. I am learning ways now that will surprise everyone musically, including myself.
Tell us about your future projects. What can one expect from Raaghav in the coming year?
Good question, I’m asking myself this question a lot these days XD. But seriously, I’m trying to work on visuals right now, learning music, and trying to collaborate with different artists. I have some projects lined up for now with other artists but I will be focusing on making my first album soon enough that I envisioned in 2022, MRIGTRISHNA: A Look to the Future, my dream project. Also, I hope to work with some of my inspirations in the coming time, but you never know what is gonna happen ahead.
Listen to Kaagaz Ke Phool on Spotify:
