In our first interview of 2024, we spoke to Rashmeet Kaur (RK) about her journey in music, her new album, the process of making it, how she balances her music, her creative process, collabs with 3 femcees on the album and a lot more. Here is the conversation with our very own Atif Qadri (AQ):
AQ: What inspired you to start making music?
RK: My regular riyaaz and old poetry from poets like Bulleh Shah and Shah Hussain.
AQ: What has been your journey as a musician so far?
RK: My journey has been incredible .. full of learnings and ups-downs. I believe that the “journey is everything” You should enjoy and live every emotion and moment of the journey rather than thinking about the destination because, for me, the destination keeps changing.
AQ: What is your favourite project you’ve ever made?
RK: Right now my favourite project is KAURA my debut pop/hip-hop album which is the biggest project of my life I spent nearly 3 years making this piece of art. Some of the ideas are 7-8 years old.
AQ: You have a full set of experience delivering commercial hits and collabs with the likes of Wazir Patar, Seedhe Maut and more. How do you adapt the evolution of the writing process and creative process including beat selection and production?
RK: I’ve done a bunch of stuff in my career you know like whether delivering organic and organic melodies with classical blend like kaha aur Musafir like an electronic and aja Savariya like an electronic composition fused with classical base. So I’ve done a bunch of stuff and I’m always up for experimenting with my music with my art, with kaura I had like a lot more freedom you know the same as my independent projects but which is different from the film project or any digital OTT platform project. So with Kaura, i had full freedom to experiment with all the genres, it’s not a genre-defining album yet it has my flavour to each and every track, each and every song that’s there in Kaura whether it is wazir patar or Seedhe Maut I’ve my folk element intact but at the same time they’re giving their verses, they’re killing it with their verses on it.
How do you adapt to the evolution of the writing process and creative process? I think Kaura has it kinda sums up all my influences from Kendrick Lamar to Bade Ghulam Ali Khan Sahab to Pakistani Reshma, soulful vocals to Punjabi rap like Young Stunners influence or Prabh Deep influence in lo-fi limitless pyaar to banger rap in fly so high punjabi rap I delivered for the first time. So I am very very grateful and blessed to be finally dropping this banger of an album where we all come together as a community. And I think all the intentions are very pure, very positive from all the artists, not just me, but all the artists, every single artist involved. I would like to mention Ashima Mahajan who created the opera section in Fly So High in the outro part of it, and she’s from Jammu and Kashmir. So we’ve tried to cover the entire India. Also a few artists like Fateh from Canada and Tracy from France abroad as well. So I feel this album has a global level of sonics and people will keep coming back to it and keep Abhi toh Shuruvat hii huwi ha Kal hii album drop hua hai eleven Jan only dropped. So everybody will have their favourites. That’s why it’s not genre-defining. It will resonate with all the generations and it has so much to offer. So I’m just looking forward to people’s favourites and people grooving on it. Let’s see. And I feel different influences played a big important role in the making of this album because it took me three years. So with time, my influences, my idols, are also releasing different music at different times, right? So it keeps changing the phases and yeah.
AQ: Can you tell me about the female rappers you have collaborated with on the album?
RK: I’ve collaborated with three female artists in my new album. I’ve collaborated with Simiran Kaur Dhadli and on Bhediya there are two female rappers Tracy De Sà who is a French artist also singing in Hindi for the first time in Bhediya and English, then Reble has given a crazy English rap verse in Bhediya.
AQ: What are your goals for the future?
RK: Goals keep changing with time and experience, I try to keep small goals rather than big ones. Like doing my practice regularly, being more disciplined and improving every day as a human and artist by working physically and mentally both on myself.
AQ: What advice would you give to aspiring musicians?
RK: My advice or suggestion to Aspiring musicians would be to focus on becoming a better version of yourself and compete with yourself only and stop comparing yourself with others … put that energy into upping your own game by working on your craft every day.
AQ: What are you most excited about for your album, Kaura?
RK: I’m most excited about the variety of songs/genres this album has to offer. It’s very different and diverse than what you usually hear. You’ll be seeing all my influences national/International in the 12 tracks, And all the featured artists have done an incredible job with their verses. In short, it’s something different and never seen before.
AQ: What are some of your favourite songs on the album?
RK: All of them are my favourites, I can’t name some because all of them are like different parts of me and I embrace all parts of me.
AQ: What was the creative process like for Kaura?
RK: The creative process is very long to be honest, as I said 3 years and more of me putting the ideas together and then the last 1 year of getting all the verses from different artists across the globe. But yeah it was an extremely learning and wonderful experience working on/offline with all these songwriters, lyricists, producers and sound engineers. With time, I’ll keep revealing the creative process in bits and pieces on my social media because there are so many stories to tell.
AQ: What are you hoping fans will take away from the album?
RK: My fans and audiences who I appreciate will take an example of constantly evolving with time and experiment/listen to as many artists as possible and of course, they’ll know that “you have to put in actual time/brain/emotions and everything if you really wanna create something timeless.
As I always keep saying “trend keeps coming and going but ART stays forever”.
AQ: How do you stay sane and focused as an artist or a hustler?
RK: I count my blessings every day and I’m grateful for this voice that I have as an artist and I want to use it to make this world a better place because it’s my responsibility to do so …and every artist should take it seriously because art is a gift and people who get it are special. So they should use it wisely … rather than dissing and pissing at each other create and build a community together where you can write on things that matter, Things that can change lives and move people. Because you have that power and you’re here for a reason. This is how I think and keeps me focused and sane.
Listen to KAURA on Spotify:
