DRV on How Boman Irani Joined His New Album ‘Polaris’

New Delhi hip-hop artist DRV aka Dhruv Rajpal’s third album Polaris has all his inimitable sense of intrigue, hedonism and genre-mashing, except this time it comes with added star power – actor (and recent director) Boman Irani is the voice guiding listeners into the 13-track full-length.

DRV tells Rolling Stone India that he wanted an “iconic, recognizable voice” for the intro. Through the label A&R, he was told it was possible to get Irani on board. It was mentioned in passing, but the rapper immediately latched on. “I’ve been a huge fan of his work and love him as an actor and thought his bilingual enunciation would be perfect for the record. I didn’t directly speak to him, the label and his team set it up smoothly and I received a voice recording from him narration the introduction I’d written for the album.”

In addition to Irani’s involvement, there’s still plenty of fresh energy heard on Polaris that arguably only DRV can bring with his raspy, resolute style. He teams up with longtime collaborators like Bombay The Artist (“I felt her part adds global appeal to the message,” DRV says) and Boyblanck but also call on frontrunners like Dhanji (“Overstimulated”), Shah Rule (“Gotta Lotta”) and Flyboy S (the drill track “Mai’rami”).

A clear standout track remains “Raat Khatam” with India-based Nigerian hip-hop artist Yung Sammy, New Delhi producer-singer Nanku and Mumbai rapper Loka. DRV explains that the song started with a beat by Nanku that he heard alongside fellow New Delhi artist Karun. “I asked him if anyone has a song on it. It was open so I took the liberty of telling him it’s mine now,” DRV says with a laugh.

Still, the rapper sat on the song for about a year (when it just had a 10-second feature from Loka). “So the song was definitely incomplete. I played the song to Sammy in the vanity van at Flyboy & Raga’s music video shoot for ‘Battak.’ He liked the song so much so I told him he can get on it,” DRV says.

The music video, which released in December, sees all the artists get together for (what else) a party. “The idea of having everyone on the song made it look stacked as fuck. No one thought they’d see DRV, Sammy, Loka and Nanku on one track,” he says.

DRV says about some of the collaborators, “Dhanji and I had been wanting to work for a minute now. I was supposed to be on his album which I mixed (DZs) which didn’t happen – then last year I was on his mixtape which made the quid pro quo happen for Polaris. With Shah Rule, we had the song made for a couple of years by that point and it wasn’t being planned to be released anytime soon so I called Rule and asked if I can put it on my album since it fits the bill.”

Production might also comes from the likes of Zero Chill (“Gotta Lotta”) and Lambo Drive (“Self Made,” featuring Pakistani artist Annural Khalid).

Producer RiJ was part of several songs, with the banger “Party Mei Aa” even going on to find support from Raftaar, leading to seasoned rapper adding a verse to a “Raa-Mix” version. Even in the midst of all this, if there’s one thing that DRV carries forward from the towering, trippy album that was Nakshatra (2022), it’s a sense of the cinematic across a totally different set of artists and producers on board. “Having that [sound of Nakshatra] as a reference point that we would go back to often in the creative process for Polaris helped a bunch. This new one is like a more evolved version of the previous one and I feel everyone – producer or artist – understood the assignment. It didn’t matter if I’d worked with them in the past.”

The album launch for Polaris in November at New Delhi’s mainstay venue The Piano Man, Eldeco Centre saw plenty of friends, rap family and a live band iteration of DRV’s performance, complete with the rapper playing guitar in rockstar mode. “The launch gig was incredible. I had Rijul Victor on drums, Ankit Rawat on bass and me on guitars and vocals. The band sounded tight as hell and overall it was incredible being able to perform my own music with a band […] I definitely wanna take the Polaris live experience across the country.”