Hear Producer-Rapper Duo Dronark and SHASHANK Turn Up with New Singles
‘Lunch Break’ and ‘Vasna’ offer playful hip-hop as well as socially conscious verses
Mumbai-based producer Dronark and Lucknow hip-hop artist SHASHANK. Photos: Courtesy of the artist (Dronark), VHX1 (SHASHANK)
Over the last two months, Mumbai-based producer Dronark aka Aman Chauhan and Lucknow-based rapper SHASHANK have pushed their collaborative minds to new levels with the release of three singles.
On January 29th, the pair released their club-friendly, dark yet upbeat track “Vasna,” followed by “Katl-e-Aam” on February 5th — a dark, grisly narrative predominantly in Urdu. Last week, the producer and the rapper dropped “Lunch Break,” a grittier, more socially conscious worldview that sees them stand stoically despite failing systems around them.
SHASHANK says about “Lunch Break” in a statement, “I think we live in a very superstitious society where people look at you differently if you don’t comply with the norms and standard set by them, in my opinion we only stand out if we break these norms and define our lifestyle the way we want to.” The more dancey yet seemingly unsettling “Vasna” came from an entirely different starting point for the duo. Chauhan says, “My roots have been electronic music and I really wanted to do something like this where we could get the heads nodding. People would listen to it and flip because they’d think it’s some usual club beat but as soon as the verse starts they start paying attention.”
While Chauhan made the move to hip-hop from remixes and EDM production in 2019, he’d started out as a beatmaker in 2017 and adopted the moniker of Dronark in 2018. SHASHANK, for his part, started rapping in 2015, influenced by hip-hop artists such as Machine Gun Kelly and NF. Last year, the duo released their second record Parlok, which was preceded by a slew of singles as well as their debut album Rahasya in 2019.
The aim for the rapper, regardless of how much following he has or will have in the future, is to represent Lucknow. SHASHANK says, “I live for UP32, man. This city taught me everything and I love it way too much, the streets, the food, the dialect. I don’t know where I’ll be in next few years but I for sure will be repping UP32 everywhere.”
Listen to “Vasna” below.
Watch the lyric video for “Lunch Break” below.
